The alarmists have abandoned air temperatures as a measure of global temperature, because the air temperature graphs are just too hard to argue with (like the second figure below, from the Skeptics Handbook). Instead they’ve switched to ocean temperatures, which they often disguise as ocean heat content (a huge number like 15×10²² Joules sounds much more scary than the warming it implies of 0.003° C/year).

All three pages of the Synthesis Report that deal with ‘evidence’ are about factors or trends that tell us nothing about whether or not the warming is due to carbon emissions. If God put the galaxy in a toaster, sea levels would rise, ocean heat content would increase, and ice would melt.

Notice how the graph above from the Synthesis Report that came out this month doesn’t include the last six years of data? Carrier pigeons from the remote worldwide network of Argo buoys make it back to base eventually, but the world’s leading team of climate researchers seem to have trouble googling “argo”. Not coincidentally, measurements of ocean heat capacity from 2003-2009 aren’t the numbers Team AGW were looking for. Indeed Craig Loehle has calculated the ocean has lost about 10% of the gain listed above since since 2003. (More info here).

It’s clear on the graph that the planet’s air barely counts (don’t mention the troposphere, or ‘hot spot’? What hot spot?). So now it “doesn’t matter” if air temperatures stay flat like this:

They’re right on one point: ocean heating trumps atmospheric heating for heat content. But how awkward for them that, with the new Argo data, no one can find any warming in the ocean either?

The new litany is that ocean temperatures are rising and rising fast. The evidence of the last five years contradicts them, so don’t look too closely; and don’t look from too far away either, or you won’t see the rise since 1960. But with the US climate bill and Copenhagen coming up, they only need to confound and confuse the issue for six months.

All the public education we did with air temperatures now starts all over again with ocean temperatures.

David Evans summed it up in an email today:

1. Ocean temperatures can only be adequately measured by the Argo buoy network (Wikipedia). Argo buoys duck dive down to 700m, recording temperatures, then come up and radio back the results. There are 3,000 of them floating around all the world’s oceans.

2. The Argos buoys have only been operational since the end of 2003. Since then they show a slight cooling: Source Link Source Link

3. Josh Willis, who runs the Argos buoy program, said in March 2008:“There has been a very slight cooling, but not anything really significant”
4. The Argo buoys initially showed definite cooling, but were recalibrated in 2007. After recalibration they showed slight warming, but now show slight cooling (PDF).
5. The Argo data shows that the AGW hypothesis is wrong, because temperatures are definitely not rising as fast as predicted by AGW: see William Di Puccio.
6. Before the Argo network we used bathythermographs (XBTs) to measure
ocean temperatures. Those records are inadequate both for depth and geographical coverage.

This graph gives an alternative view that fits the data better (thanks to Akasofu).

Many alarmists like to ignore everything but the last warming, because the last warming is accompanied by large human emissions of CO2. But history matters because the climate model predictions are very much based on history. Briefly, here’s how.

The little ice age in the 1600s and 1700s was obviously not caused by humans. Since 1750 the global temperature has been recovering, with alternating warming and cooling periods of about 30 years each around a steady underlying warming trend. Human emissions of CO2 were negligible before 1850, and before 1945 they were insignificant compared to today’s emissions.

The climate models were trained by assumingthat nearly all the warming since 1750 was due to rising CO2 levels. This assumption underpins all of AGW. Therefore if there were other causes of warming coming out of the little ice age, then (1) the models overestimate the sensitivity of the climate to CO2 and (2) their predictions of future warming are exaggerated.

We have just had 26 years of warming (1975 – 2001). If the pattern holds, we are now due for at least two decades of slight cooling.

And where did the extra CO2 come from before 1950? High school chemistry: a warmer ocean releases more of its dissolved CO2 into the atmosphere.

The Fielding-Wong meeting spawned a brief email debate between climate heavyweights. The alarmist started it by patronizing Fielding’s independent scientists, but it seems that when you call the bluff of a government funded alarmist scientist and put a direct question you don’t get a direct reply — only evasion and arrogance.

Had EPA mgt just ignored him, any further questioning by him or anybody else could have easily dismissed potential suspicions:

“Memo? What memo? We never got any “memos” from him. We told him to look into the issue, but he never responded. All he did was provide us with a couple of “status reports” on his assignment, and that was met with some personal opinions of his.

If he didn’t carry out the work we told him, there is really nothing we can do to “make him” do something”

What do you mean the air temp records are “too hard to argue with”? You guys argue with them all the time… Clear… warming… trend…. other than post-1998 taking the warmest year ever as a starting point.

Switching to ocean temps is an interesting strategy… mostly because it is completely unnecessary.

The oceans warm while the atmosphere cools? Must have a good layer of pink batts, but what I like most about this one is that Kevin Rudd is being dragged in. He lectured a bung of QLD students yesterday, emboldened by his csiro flakes saying that “the world was still warming”. There will be some very terse exchanges between him and Penny as this pans out. Put it all down to Steven Fielding. Well done that man. Matty, Perth

How come the adjustments/recalibrations always make the problem worse? Surely in the real world positive adjustments are more or less balanced by negative adjustments. At least that has been my experience with financial models.

Mondo all mistakes tend to make things cooler. If a mistake makes something warmer, like say locating the thermometer over a barbeque pit, it wasn’t a mistake.
Other related correlaries;
There’s no such thing as an UHI effect.
If there were such a thing as UHI, it would never effect the results.
The check is in the mail.
I’ll respect you in the morning.

Its not about AWG. It never was about AWG. Its about elimination of the concept of individual rights, collectivization, and the enslavement of all to all. That is except for the environmentalists. THEY are to be the masters of the universe.

Why do we try to reason with them? They look like human beings but they have abandoned the one attribute that that is essential for being human: reason. I say we should treat them for what they are: a clear and imminent threat to our lives and liberty.

What do you mean the air temp records are “too hard to argue with”? You guys argue with them all the time… Clear… warming… trend… other than post-1998 taking the warmest year ever as a starting point.

To be honest Matt, I agree with you on this one. With air temperatures, we have (by far) the most measurements and also the most useful proxies. Tree ring growth is not going to be linked in any direct way to the temperature 700m under the ocean, it is going to be very directly influenced by the air around the tree (and by CO2 in that air of course).

There is still a lot of uncertainty in the measurements of air temperature, not because we don’t have enough measurement but because keeping a consistent and calibrated measurement series for a whole century in a rapidly changing world is actually quite a difficult job. Repeat this difficulty over large areas of the earth’s surface and you get room for uncertainty in those measurements. However, given that the measurements have some problems, when you average it all out, the best estimate of the trend that we have is something around 1 degree C of warming by 2100.

Had the IPCC given the conservative estimate of 1 degree warming by 2100, they could have said there would be some climate change due to this warming, some need for adaptation and moderation of our behaviour, and if it did warm more than the prediction they would have the perfectly reasonable answer “Well, there was uncertainty, so we took a cautious estimate.”

Instead they had to make their most probable scenario 3 degrees by 2100, and then start with the hands waving in the air and running small circles squawking loudly. The only remaining hope the IPCC has of keeping any credibility is to ramrod through some sort of CO2 cutbacks real quick, so when the cyclic cooling does come, they can claim credit for it.

Like a soothsayer in front of an eclipse calling, “Spilling the blood of an innocent child is the only way to make the sun come back!” So the people kill the child and the sun comes back. Soothsayer must have known what he was talking about…

Switching to ocean temps is an interesting strategy… mostly because it is completely unnecessary.

It’s a strategy that reveals what the AGW side of the table think about the hand they are holding. They throw away a bunch of Jacks because only a hand of Aces is good enough for them. If they were willing to compromise and sacrifice their own self importance, then there would be a lot less debate on the issue and maybe a bit of constructive planning for the future.

Yes there is some warming, not overly dramatic warming, but there is warming. We don’t really know how our actions will affect that in the future, but we think there’s a chance that reducing CO2 might reduce the warming, a bit. We don’t know how much.

First step is to do what we are sure we can achieve, which is adaptation of our agricultural technology, and habitation technology to handle broader climate conditions. Only after that should we consider the slow and careful move to a greater variety of energy supply options (with much research and development during that process).

There will be some very terse exchanges between him and Penny as this pans out. Put it all down to Steven Fielding. Well done that man.

The more independent and minor parties you have in the Senate, the better the quality of the Senate. It was designed to be a house of review, not a rubber stamp.

Kevin Rudd is (to all intents and purposes) a career bureaucrat, which makes him good at some things and bad at others. I can respect him for making some serious effort to keep election promises (pity about the promise regarding grocery price monitoring, but he tried to keep other promises). Sadly, he has had trouble adapting strategy for a world that is changing around him (no easy for any man).

Governments are good at structured decisions, and they deliver consistency. Markets are good at adaptation and dynamics. Both of them have some advantages.

Tel: Governments are good at structured decisions, and they deliver consistency. Markets are good at adaptation and dynamics. Both of them have some advantages.

Unfortunately, Governments are very poor at connecting their structured decisions to reality BEFORE making their decisions and committing to action (see the entire content of the JoNova blog for massive evidence attesting to this fact). Even in a truly Free Market economy, making decision is about the most irrelevant act one can make. Especially when the decision is based upon the presumption that decision creates reality rather than simply affirms and follows the nature of reality.

When one understands the nature of the situation, the relevant facts in full context, and the consequences of possible action, no decision is required. All that is left is to identify the right thing to do and do it. If you don’t have these things, you are guessing and a successful outcome will be a low probability accident no matter what your goal.

A manager or bureaucrat who thinks his job is to make decisions is someone who has no real job to perform. He confuses himself with god. He prances, preens, and pontificates on how much he is doing. In actuality, it is nothing but a pretense. Nothing is accomplished until the necessary knowledge of reality is acquired and is logically connected to the desired goals. Only then can actual skill and effort be applied to make it so. Even then a level of honesty and honor is required that is well beyond the capacity of the vast majority of managers and bureaucrats to exhibit.

I suggest THIS is why all governments and large corporations fail. They substitute guessing and wish for understanding and logic and act accordingly. Since there are enormously more ways to fail than to succeed, their ultimate failure, by any standard of measure, is assured.

“OPEN LETTER TO THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES: YOU ARE BEING DECEIVED ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING

You have recently received an Open Letter from the Woods Hole Research Center, exhorting you to act quickly to avoid global disaster. The letter purports to be from independent scientists, but that Center is the former den of the President’s science advisor, John Holdren, and is far from independent. This is the same science advisor who has given us predictions of “almost certain” thermonuclear war or eco-catastrophe by the year 2000, and many other forecasts of doom that somehow never seem to arrive on time.”

Jo, a question about the first ARGO graph posted here. Someone at Real Climate told me that the Nino 3.4 SST graph is just an area in the Pacific somewhere (I forget where), and not the whole ARGO data set. I said, ok, but there is still reports that the ARGO data shows a slight decrease, and linked a statement by Josh Willis that said so. So I’m curious, do you know what exactly the Nino -3.4 anomaly graph represents?

From the letter “Finally, climate alarmism pays well. Many alarmists are profiting from their activism. There are billions of dollars floating around for the taking, and being taken.”… one wonders how much Roger W. Cohen Manager, Strategic Planning and Programs, ExxonMobil Corporation (retired) profited from his career?or did he just do it for fun?

Tommy:
Here is a site dedicated to ENSO:http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf
Nino 3.4 represents the monitoring region for ENSO.
The shortnes of data from ARGO and the questionable historic sea surface data that is being used to provide evidence for global warming is evidence of nothing but lack of scientific research. The long research by Akasofu proves what science is about. There is no evidence that global warming exists. There is only evidence of natural variation.
I believe you said that Jo but I just wanted to repeat it as some still believe the unnatural warming exists. Actually the correct term is natural climate change. There have been rumors of a support carbon with a black ribbon campaign being started.

Matt:
I just read your contribution. We might want to ask how much the hydricarbon industries actually provided the green groups as regulations would be good for thier bottom line. Agw sent Al Gore from 2 million to 100 million since he was a VP and he is set to rake in more with his green investments. Then there are the PR groups that rake in money by provideing press releases and support for the poor enviormental groups such as Green Peace with an anual budget larger than many countries.

The latest New Scientist blares on its cover ‘Its worse than we thought’. This is an article by Anil Ananthaswamy full of dire predictions and multiple use of words such as ‘could’ ‘possibly’ ‘we need better models’ ‘studies show that’ etc., etc., to show that sea levels are rising very fast. The whole thing seems to revolve around the heat content of the oceans and how warm currents are melting ice caps in Greenland and Antarctica. There is very little in the way of data or graphs to support all this. the article is so completely at variance with the current data we find on the sceptic blog sites that I feel as though they are talking about a different planet -and this is a magazine that promoted itself with the slogan ‘Question Everything’ Can we hope that evolution will turn the human race into rational beings at some point or do we have to behave like this because we are human?

I find it interesting that the headlines are so often “worse than we thought”. The emphasis is placed on “its worse” rather than on the fact the original estimate was so poor. If they consistently get their estimates wrong, how can they get their identification of cause and effect right?

They are either guessing on both their estimates and their science or they have their science wrong. One would think with so many people guessing on so many thing they would get something right by accident once in a while. Perhaps their purpose has more to do with politics, power, and control more than it has to do with science. I suggest their appearance of doing science is their attempt to give their fraud a cloak of respectability.

Re article in New Scientist about rising sea levels etc. (thanks, Stuart): This got me searching for sea level research in the field – as opposed to computer model predictions. Here is an ABC Radio interview with sea level expert Dr Nils Axel Morner:

Dr Morner was an expert reviewer on IPCC. He was the only sea level expert involved! When he pointed out that graphs and figures contradicted the text in the synthesis report, the IPCC removed the graphs and kept the text!

Listen to the whole interview, it is pretty damning … Even Dr Morner has been accused of being in the pay of big oil.

Mike the point is that if they want to play science why slur the $$$. One wonders if the climate cares who gets however many dollars from whoever. I just found it humorous that a letter is signed by 5 people, one of whom has clearly made A LOT of money in his career with Big Oil, and it has the cheek to claim the AGW university scientists are wallowing in dirty cash!

The difference is that the dirty cash the AGW university scientists are using has been taken at the point of a governments gun from the people who earned it – such as Big oil. Big Oil EARNS the cash it spends by producing a real value and trading for i. It doesn’t steal it at the point of a gun.

Its irrelevant how many people voted to take the money by force. Its irrelevant how much they or others “feel” they need it. Its irrelevant that is consistent with the laws passed by the various legislatures. Its taken by force from those who earned it and that is a violation of their basic individual rights. So called emergencies, actual or fabricated, don’t count either. The academics are thugs by proxy and should be treated as such.

If you think the wealth is not taken by force, just try not paying your taxes – the guns will soon come out to take what they say you owe and more.

The fundamental issue is that there is no right to violate rights no matter how many want or who wants to or what the reason they have for doing it. An individual has the right to his life, to be free to seek its enhancement, and to own the results of his efforts and to pay for the consequences of his failures. He does not have the right to claim the unearned from anyone. A group has no rights that the individual does not have.

“How come the adjustments/recalibrations always make the problem worse? Surely in the real world positive adjustments are more or less balanced by negative adjustments. At least that has been my experience with financial models.”

In the case of Josh Willis and the Argos data, he made the adjustments for the purpose of removing the cooling signal. He threw out colder data, and mixed older drop-probe data known to be warm biased in with the state-of-the-art Argos float data. Even after all that, he still had a small cooling signal.

Far from trying to hide this behavior he proudly describes it all on the NASA web site. (http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/OceanCooling/) He claims he did this because he “knew” that the cooling “couldn’t be real” — and also he was getting a lot of flack from other scientists whose models couldn’t allow ocean cooling.

Willis has since modified his explanation somewhat to conform more with accepted scientific practice (see: http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=2079). He now claims that “The improved agreement with climate models was as much of a surprise to us as anyone else”, and that finding out that the cooling “wasn’t real” was a result of the unbiased adjustment. Color me unconvinced. He contradicts himself, as he claimed on the NASA site that it was the realization that the cooling “couldn’t be real” that started his search for biased probes. Strangely, all the “biased” probes he found just happened to be too cold.

Willis’ initial description of “adjusting” the data is interesting, as it apparently was completely uncontroversial among his colleagues. Apparently, adjusting data to make it fit your preconceptions is SOP in climate “science”. It was only after it was proudly published on the NASA web that public criticism caused him to modify his explanation.

So, in answer to your question Mondo; the reason “adjustments” are always one-way is that only data showing less warming than the models are ever examined for bias, and the only bias looked for is cool bias. If you’re feeding off of government grants, it’s best not to buck this issue — warmer scientists can be pretty sensitive about anyone threatening to derail the gravy train.

Stuart I think that Nature and Science are the benchmark top shelf science journals. That does not mean everything they publish is gospel but I think it is fair and accountable. I actually used to quite enjoy E&E for a few years but the rigour of scientific assessment is not there.

Does anyone out there in the climate science world take into account the affect that accelerated plant growth due to higher CO2 levels, (especially in the tropics), has upon solar energy CAPTURE? Hansen said there is an ‘imbalance’ of .6W /M^2. Can a plant, say a tropical rain forest tree for example, accommodate that or a portion of that extra amount by an increase in photosynthesis?

Matt Buckels: “lol! Lets ask a few Nigerians yeah? Or Iraqis for that matter!”

A couple questions…
If there were no oil companies in Nigeria there would be more or less Nigerians employed and there would be more or less tax revenue collected?

Let’s see, before the invasion of Iraq, what international political organization was directly involved protecting people within that organization who were profiting immensely by scamming a ‘Food for Oil’ sanction by buying oil vouchers from Saddam while innocent southern shia Iraqis starved? (Hint- it is SAME organization run by mostly a bunch of third world dictators and thugs who oversee the “Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change”.)

“I say we should treat them [environmentalists] for what they are: a clear and imminent threat to our lives and liberty.”

I agree 100%. A good start would be to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency. It will take time; but if (a) the EPA imposes regulations that reduce all forms of energy production that release CO2 into the atmosphere, and (b) the economies of the western world continue to decline, the public will want to extract revenge on someone. Why not on one of the responsible agencies?

But the EPA has done many many GOOD things for our environment. The US is among those countries with the cleanest air and water thanks to the ‘sensible’ regulations. The problem is having too many nonsense-ible regulations that stymie industry. So I’d say let them exist but rein in their power. They should be made to PROVE their assertions.

No one has ever proven CO2 makes any measurable difference to the climate let alone the puny amount we add to it.

Matt wrote,
“What do you mean the air temp records are “too hard to argue with”? You guys argue with them all the time… Clear… warming… trend…. other than post-1998 taking the warmest year ever as a starting point. ”

Small point, but I think you’ll find that in the last Century 1934, and 1921 were very, very close to 1998.
1934 I understand many think was higher than 1998.
“warmest year ever” – Nope, patent rubbish, bulldung, etc, etc, in Roman times alone there were decades higher.

EPA – Ignored one of it’s own (and most highly respected) Alan Carlin (96 page report in under a week…) who was sent an internal email dismissing his report.
None of this would of come to light except for an internal leak.
This story (traversty), or rather series of (incrimating) events has been covered extensively on WUWT recently,
well worth checking out.
The above is unusual to say the least, but the bill for cap and trade HAD TO HAVE an EPA report for endangerment to “justify” the bill…..

Googling Argo should have brought forth Argo Records, a label from the great days Decca. How times persist in their deterioration! No Argo of merit for pages of Google. The whole fraud under the moniker of ‘climate change’ is worthy only of contempt. ‘Science’ has come under the control of a tribe of Lysenkos. Better to listen to great music while the lights stay on. Celebrate Haydn while one can in his bi-centenary–with a nod to J F Revel.

Followed this link from comments on WUWT (I can’t do links – you can google I’m sure)
Howie Carr WKRO radio show had Linzen? from MIT on yesterday.
Interesting interview maybe 20 min. – (its on the web)
He describes himself as not a skeptic but a denier.
Also promotes a global warming skeptics handbook / Jo-anne Nova / website

Heretics! Heretics! The oceans is heating up. Why you ask! I’ll tell you why Whales and Seals are major emitters of C02 Methane and CFC’s. The Japanese are not butchering enough Whales and cos the Polar Bears is being extincted seals is running amok. The jury is out on Walruses but they could be the smokin gun.

It is “amusing” to realise how little we know about the blue whale…
The largest creature on the planet, yet most of it’s life cycle (and actual numbers) remain a mystery.

If “we” know so little about the largest creature on the planet, what do we know about the rest of our planets inhabitants.
Fish population studies for example…….Hint any fish population projections that do not mention oceanic phases / currents and their changes (also atmospheric wind patterns and changes) are missing the probably most singly important factor/s.
Apologies, just preparing the ground a little for the next round of eco-babble about how we are supposedly dessimating the oceans. You know how a few hundreds of gigatonnes of human emitted CO2 will eventually acidify the oceans that already contain 38,0000 gigatonnes (roughly) of CO2.
Whilst forgetting to mention the rest of the land based biotas reaction to the extra CO2 from whatever source.

Plainly “AGW” does not (and will not) have a clue regarding the natural complex systems that the oceans and land are.

uh-huh – the British have been leading the parade on the “man-made ocean acidification” fantasy.

Looking at the zero significant figure estimate of the amount of CO2 necessary to acidify the existing CO3/HCO3 buffer of the oceans

and the contemplated scenario is CRAZY

It’s not even CRAZY it is LUNATIC

It’s so far out there that the word “preposterous” doesn’t even apply.

Some of the ideas to come from this CO2 stuff set some new standards for junk science, really. History will chronicle this for the amazement, bewilderment, and possible entertainment of future generations

Brian, “outright daft” is the only term I think is fitting for ocean acidification because IF, (using THEIR logic here…), IF CO2 makes the planet warmer then that includes the ocean with is 1000 times the thermal mass of the atmosphere. It is scientific FACT that warmer water can hold LESS CO2, (and less CO2 means LESS life which explains why the warmest areas of ocean are the dead-est. In fact, the rise of CO2 that was happening was primarily the ocean giving up CO2 as well as increased biomass respiration on land. The rate of CO2 rise is now starting to slow down, (to the chagrin of the IPCC which predicted acceleration), which is consistant with the ocean temperature now beginning to level off. It’s all nature – the 4% human CO2 has vitually NOTHING to do with it! These eco-nazis want you to believe that driving your car is poisoning the ocean – all total BS!

Hey Brian, post 48, good post! I read where there are 400 dead zones Worldwide. An area of 95,000 sq miles of Ocean. Now if my math is correct, there are 148 MILLION sq. miles of Ocean on this Planet! 95,000 is, now for the drum roll, .6% is affected. Come on Alarmists! And we are suppose to be alarmed! .6%, get real!

Mr Pete.. maybe you could take some of Steve M’s sage advice and “Steve: again, I urge readers not to go a bridge too far. This happens far too often. People need to learn not to hyperventilate. Aside from being a waste of energy, it’s counter-productive. What happens is that an opponent always rebuts the weakest and most hyperbolic claim and avoids dealing with the narrower and more problematic issue. Please stop going beyond what’s on the table.”

Just in, Dr. Buzz Aldrin, the 2nd man to walk on the moon, declared that he’s a skeptic, “I’m not in favour of just taking short-term isolated situations and depleting our resources to keep our climate just the way it is today.” http://tinyurl.com/l4lwa6

Dr. Aldrin is a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and earned his Doctorate of Science in Astronautics at MIT.

I am assuming there were always “dead zones” in the oceans, due to the occasional (and random, or at least “chaotic”) combinations or not of oceanic upwellings, surface winds, nutrient supply and biota balance.
So, the real question is are there more / less /the same number / amount of dead zones.
And, how do they vary over time perfectly naturally.

The present amount of 0.6 is it above or below “normal”, and how much does normal, normally vary. Is there a cyclical variation in the amount of “dead zones” in the ocean, etc, etc, etc..?
It would seem another band wagon jumped on using linear / constant assumptions.
When will these people get the idea of a complex natural system.
The “Gulf stream is going to stop” debacle should of told them and us all we need to know regarding how far away from reality simple linear assumptions are versus complex natural (and [mostly] cyclical) systems. ie the Ozone hole scam.

Derek, why don’t you tell that to the Alarmists! They think “Dead Zones” are attributed to AGW. Don’t get me wrong, some of them are affected by runoff of fertilizers from land used by farming and other pollution factors like raw sewage! This number, as you can see is insignificate as compared to the mechanism of the Ocean!

Alarmists will never get the idea of how complex Earth’s natural system really is…Their emotions get in the way of logic!

Remember, this is just ONE of their pitches they use towards there cause..Lies, nothing but!

Anyway it is funny that Nature has called them a liar on air temperature,now the alarmists are hoping that Nature can not do that twice over water temperature.However even AGW believers failed to eliminate the past 6 years of ARGO data showing undeniable cooling.We also have to put up with the ocean acidification alarms,that are obvious baloney.

Yup Dead Zones are real and not always water based either.How I wish they would stop trying to be prostituting themselves for an ideal political ideology and money and get back to rational scientific work.

“The “Gulf stream is going to stop” debacle should of told them and us all we need to know regarding how far away from reality simple linear assumptions are versus complex natural (and [mostly] cyclical) systems. ie the Ozone hole scam.”

There are so little melt water from the arctic region left to possibly disturb the Gulf stream flow.During the Younger Dryas days,it was possible because there were still a lot of glacial ice and dammed up melt waters to quickly enter the north Atlantic.

The Ozone concerns were wildly overblown since only a tiny region of the planet was showing SHORT TERM profound O3 reduction in the atmosphere.That quickly recovered after the Antarctica polar vortex changes,allowing the atmosphere to mix again.

Denny and Sunsettommy,
I’m not sure why you both seem to have misinterpretted what I wrote. ?

Denny –
I have spent several years posting what I think, have find out, learnt, been made aware of, and relevant links. I have even had a go at doing pieces both solo and joint, with accompanying excel sheets.
Mostly these were aimed at the interested layman, rather than waste time with brain washed, closed minded AGW sheep.
Unfortunately most of the above was recently (accidentally) deleted on the forum where it was posted.
Apparently there are / were no back-ups of the forum.

SST –
I mentioned the Gulf stream as an example of linear assumptions (two measurements, one line drawn) being used to totally misrepresent the real situation.
The Gulf stream appears to vary perfectly naturally on a seasonal basis.

As for the Ozone hole, as you have shown me before, but I can not link to now as the relevant posts/ threads have been deleted, the ozone “hole” over Antarctica was first discovered in the late 1940s / early 1950s. Then it was thought the “hole” was seasonal, this was later discredited and replaced with the idea of human emmitted CFCs being the cause of the “hole”.
Now we know better, the later was bad science, and an incomplete picture of a little known and greatly misunderstood complex natural system.

Given the points I was trying to make and illustrate I think the examples I used depicted well what I intended to convey.

From your replies I seemingly did not do as good a job of it as I had hoped.

The recent passage of the mostly unread Waxman-Markey bill through the US congress is not so much a victory for Obama, but is the sad story of parliamentary practice gone awry where vote buying trumps merit to secure passage. The US congress has shown it is no better than a third world banana republic.

You’re not kidding, Ted – and it would seem to be a very good launching pad for their political opponent this year or next when people who voted for this idiotic “cap and trade proposal” need to take their case to the voters:

“Your current flea-bag voted to impose laws on you that he didn’t even read or understand because he couldn’t – he was told to vote for this thing within an hour of having it finished and NOBODY knew what the bill contained –

This “representative” doesn’t represent you any more than he represents Alexander Putin. He is a flea-bag little puppy dog of Nancy Pelosi and Henry Waxman and the only thing you can count on him to do in his next go-around is to take some more orders from Al Gore, because Gore isn’t done with him yet.”

I am so glad to have found this web site. The two things that break the global warming theory’s back for me is :

1: The fact that CO2 absorption is well past its saturation point. If it can’t absorb any more energy then higher concentrations can’t be responsible for global warming.

2: The fact that the ice cores say just the opposite of what the theory states namely that higher concentrations drive the increase in temperature when in fact it is the other way around. This is easily explainable to anyone that understands how dissolved gases react to a higher temperature.

I am kind of embarrassed about the first point, my training is in chemistry and I understand very well that all compounds have a favorite wavelength where they absorb radiation. I was an analytical chemist for 16 years and if this weren’t the case I would have had a devil of a time doing my job. I was unaware that such a large amount of that absorption occurred at levels of 20ppm but given the depth of the atmosphere that is a lot of CO2 for the radiation to pass through, so makes sense.

Unfortunately, what I think we have here is an unholy alliance between scientists that want funding for their work, statists politicians that want all the control they can get, individuals that see an opportunity to become very wealthy, and zombie like environmentalists that have the same blank 1000 yard stare of any cult member you’ve ever met.

When I was a young man which was a long, long time an old man told me “If you want to understand the world just follow the money and the power”. When you apply that to this situation it’s easy to understand why we are here discussing this and why the other side is so dogmatic. Governments always want more power, they never voluntarily relinquish control, it’s simply not in their nature. If they can control a person’s use of carbon there is virtually nothing about a person they don’t have final say over. It’s a politician’s nirvana; they have wet dreams about things like this. An individual detecting an opportunity to become wealthy by embedding themselves in a government run scam is kind of a no-brainer. There are always unscrupulous individuals that don’t mind making a fortune even if it’s based on a lie. As far as the zombie environmentalists I am not going to try to explain them, it’s above my pay grade.

I also can’t help but think that this might also have something to do with peak oil; I mean the fact that this is all coming to a head. For those in this forum that don’t know “peak oil” is just the point where oil production peaks and the annual availability is less each year and therefore more expensive. Some think we have already past it, some think we are on the flat before the fall. I trade futures and I know that the price for a commodity is set at the margins; the last available barrel sets the price. The price of oil got to 147$ last year. If we had not experienced the financial meltdown (which is a whole other story) we would be perilously close to a situation where demand begins to outstrip supply. What if this is just a well orchestrated attempt to control how fast the remaining fossil fuels are used and by whom they are used? Just a thought any comments are of course welcome.

Abiotic (experimental evidence – YES)/ biotic (experimental evidence – NO) origins of oil,
have humans ever run out of any “resource”,
were last years price rises merely “speculation”, or orchestrated,
possibly by the misinformed, but certainly for increased profits of a very few,
paid for by the very many – us.

The question of Peak Oil has been brought up several times on different threads here. It is an interesting discussion, and I am going to (again) recommend an invaluable little book for those who are interested in learning more about this contentious issue: “A Poverty of Reason: Sustainable Development and Economic Growth” (2003) by Dr Wilfred Beckerman, Emeritus Fellow (Economics) of Balliol College, Oxford.

(Reminder to self: buy shares in the publishing company!)

(p20):

“Even for oil, which many people believe to be the primary energy source that is most limited in supply, the flaws in the usual pessimistic methodology of comparing current or predicted rates of consumption with known or estimated reserves have been evident for decades. For example, in 1950, annual world oil consumption was running at approximately 4 billion barrels per year, and proven reserves were approximately 90 billion barrels – only enough for perhaps twenty-two years’ supply. But, in the subsequent forty-three years, actual consumption was more than 640 billion barrels. Furthermore, at the end of those years, proven reserves were ten times greater than they had been at the outset.”

(pp21-22):

“Past Predictions of Energy Shortages

The falsification of predictions of rapidly approaching energy shortages – like that of materials in general – has a very distinguished pedigree. For example, back in 1865 the great economist W S Jevons predicted shortages of coal supplies. But, although coal demand has since increased far more than Jevons anticipated, known reserves of coal are now estimated to be enough for at least another thousand years or so at current rates of consumption (Rogner 1997). And how many people believe that in one thousand years the world will still be using such a dirty and polluting fuel?

In spite of the decisive falsification of Jevons’s predictions during the course of the subsequent decades, ninety years later the 1955 UN Atoms for Peace Conference made estimates of both proven and ultimately recoverable reserves of fossil fuels, which are now seen to be one-quarter and one-twelfth, respectively, of current estimates (Anderson 1998b:438). One can list innumerable equally falsified predictions in later years, particularly following the 1973 oil crisis, which led the U.S. Department of Energy to predict the oil price to reach $250 a barrel by the year 2000 (“Energy Survey,” The Economist, 10 February 2001, 13). Similarly mistaken predictions in the 1970s and later include the following:

“Countries with expanding industry, rapid population growth … will be especially hard hit by economic energy scarcities from now on.” (Amory Lovins in 1974)

“The supply of oil will fail to meet increasing demand before the year 2000, most probably between 1985 and 1995, even if energy prices are 50 percent above current levels in real terms.” (MIT workshop in 1977)

“The diagnosis of the U.S. energy crisis is quite simple: demand for energy is increasing, while supplies of oil and natural gas are diminishing. Unless the U.S. makes a timely adjustment before world oil becomes very scarce and very expensive in the 1980s, the nation’s economic security and the American way of life will be gravely endangered.” (Executive Office of the President, National Energy Program, in 1977)”

There is more, but you really need to get the book to see the full picture. It’s only 96 pages long and very succinct and accessible, even if you’ve never studied economics.

One reason people keep predicting doom that never happens is that, while people can easily understand a zero-sum game (perhaps a legacy of our tribal past?), the notion of wealth creation is little understood, and appears to be somewhat magical.

For example: Historically, traders have been reviled for being nothing but parasites — they “simply” bought low somewhere and sold high elsewhere. The idea that the knowledge of where and what to buy and sell, and how to get from there to here with the goods (and their lives) intact was worth something was easy to overlook (especially as it was usually a closely-held ‘trade secret’). Also, the notion that this activity increased the wealth of both societies (the makers and the buyers) is abstract and hard to see in the now (but the effects are evident over the long term).

An interesting book that deals with the wealth-creation aspect of energy use (and how that will ALWAYS lead to more energy use and wealth-creation) is “The Bottomless Well: The Twilight of Fuel, The Virtue of Waste, and why we will never run out of energy”, by Peter Huber and Mark Mills.

It’s difficult to sum this book up in a few words, but it will definitely give you a different perspective from the Peak Oil doomers.

The Peak Oil theory is mostly based on the work of Hubbert. He was a geologist that predicted that after you have withdrawn 50% of a field’s available oil it gets progressively harder to get the rest out. He predicted that the oil production in the U.S. would go into decline in 1970. He hit it spot on. Others took his observations and applied them to world output and known reserves. They estimated that world production would go into decline around 2005 to 2010. Estimates of world production are admittedly difficult due to the fact that governments where oil production is government owned hold this information as state secrets so we really don’t know the proven reserves of Saudi Arabia.

The time line for peak oil is also affected by the demand curve. Right now we are not using as much as we were say 9 months ago. It’s also affected by new cool ways to make old field produce at higher rates, fracturing the fields, gas and water injection etc. However just getting the last bits out faster just means the field will be exhausted sooner. No new really big fields have been discovered for decades. North Slope and North Sea which I think were the last two intermediate size fields discovered are already in decline. Mexico went into decline a few years ago but I don’t know if that’s due to the field or corruption and incompetence.

You are correct that there have been innumerable predictions of the end of oil as we know it. I believe that most of these were invalidated by clever humans finding cool ways to squeeze more and more out of existing fields. World oil consumption somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 million barrels a day is more of the problem than supply. We are still producing a boatload of oil but we are also burning it all and all things being constant we will need 3% more every year. That is where the problem lies. We are reaching the point where we simply just can’t suck it out of the earth fast enough. It’s more of a production rate versus the consumption rate argument. With China and India coming online and needing more oil themselves this demand side of the equation will only get worse. At some point the demand curve will cross above the production curve and that’s when the pain starts. Peak oil is not that we will run out of oil as so many of the predictions you cite. It is that the economics of using oil due to scarcity/demand and production costs will make it painful to use in many of the ways we use it today.

If as peak oil theory holds the world production begins to decline, then we have an untenable situation. The situation will be each year 3% more oil demand, and each year less oil production.

A lot of the speculation that occurred in the oil market had more to do with monetary concerns. Traders did not want the stock market they did not want the bond market they didn’t even want cash, the only place left was commodities and oil seemed as good as gold. But I don’t want to get into that this post is long enough and off topic enough already.

The present decade (2000-2010), however, reflects an upturn in discoveries and appears on track to be the third best for discovery of giant oil and gas fields in the 150 year history of modern oil and gas exploration.[3]

Besides new discoveries, there are being developed methods to extract oil and gas from shale, tar sands, and coal beds that have reserves orders of magnitude beyond the quoted oil reserves.

Chances are, we will stop using oil from choice eventually (hundreds of years?), not because we ever run out of recoverable oil or suffer from declining production. The Peak Oil predictions will go the way of Malthus, Club of Rome, and all the other doomsayer’s predictions — they are just the latest from the same mentality that can’t help but believe that progress stops now.

BobC and Derek the wiki link apparently thinks 500,000 million barrel oil field is big, it’s not. Take a look at the link provided from the same source and you will see what I mean. Ghawar in Saudi Arabia 75 to 83 billion with a B, Burgan in Kuwait 66 to 72 billion these fields are referred to as elephants in the industry and there have been very few in the 20 to 30 billion range found lately.

I don’t wish to belabor the point but I am not talking about running out of oil. I am talking about running out of cheap oil. The low hanging fruit has been picked. It’s a function of production and consumption rates nothing more. As far as oil and gas from tar sands and shale, first very hard to extract economically and what you have after you do extract it can hardly be referred to as Texas sweet crude its more like crud that needs to be cracked and cracked again into something usable. Oil shale and tars sand have been around since I was too young to drink and if they could make money using them they would have by now.

Again, I am only talking about running out of the cheap stuff. Progress won’t stop until the last man standing stands no more, but it can take some unexpected turns along the way. You are right we will stop using hydrocarbons long before we run out, voluntarily. But I think the reason will be the cost. We simple won’t want to pay for it. Example: if gas was 15 dollars a gallon do you think push mowers would make a come back? If oil, natural gas and diesel went through a sustained price spike what impact do you think that would have on agricultural commodities. They have huge energy inputs.

BobC, please don’t lump me in with Club of Rome et al and God knows who else. Frankly I have never even looked at their opinions. I look at an opinion and then I try to take it apart and believe me I have tried to take this one apart for years and it still keeps on standing. I don’t want to be right about this one for a variety of reasons. If my mentality was to believe that the end was nigh why would I be in total agreement that global warming was a pant load of B.S.? I would consul you not to make the typical human mistake of always expecting tomorrow to be like today. I’m a trader, I’m like a ferret, and every day is new, anything can happen.

Return to topic. I can tell you that the lower corn belt has had a boatload of rain. Farmers have been unable to get their crops in except in central and northern IL. Southern IL has had wet conditions all spring and so far all summer. Corn and soybeans should have been in by the middle of last month. If they get a late fall they will be lucky. Don’t know if this is related but I would sure like to find out.

I am very interested that this blog has segued into another thread entirely!!! I find the question of energy for our civilisation to be absolutely critical since I have come to believe (in the scientific sense!) that our explosion of population, technology, arts and all the other benefits of our lives are due to our having discovered sources of abundant energy such as oil, coal, wind, sun and nuclear power. to cover this subject accurately has proved to be very difficult for the alarmists in particular and I have found an outstandingly interesting paper by someone called David JC MacKay. The paper is called ‘Sustainable Energy – without the hot air’ and it an outstanding analysis of the facts about all forms of energy that we can use with lots of graphs and very reliable data. It is a 9+ Mb download from here: http://www.withouthotair.com/

I know that you will all find this very interesting in spite of the fact that the author describes himself as someone who ‘believes’ in global warming – I think he is a ‘lukewarmist’ myself!

Dr. Will Happer, a renowned Princeton Physicist wants to stop the nonsense. He says that US Congress thinking it has the power to change the climate would be hilarious if it wasn’t for the fact that their legislation will destroy the economy and hurt so many poor people.

Concerning getting rich on this ‘green’ scam though, he re-ignites an analogy that I haven’t heard for a while equating carbon credits to the indulgences sold by the Roman Catholic Church at the time of the reformation. Basically, it was okay to sin as long as you came up with cold cash to pay them to have you forgiven.

I think it’s an excellent analogy, the alarmists have put themselves in a position above the rest of us and declared that emitting CO2 is somehow a ‘sin’ simply because they say so. We are supposed to ‘take their word for it’ as a matter of faith, we are to believe that they are correct and we of the ignorant masses are wrong.

It totally explains their reaction to both our presentations of evidence contrary to their theory and to our challenge to their authority. That reaction is very similar to the RCC back in the 16th century – they now seem to be posturing to PROSECUTE those who dare to disagree with them! Al Gore is now equating people like Dr. Happer or Joanne or me with Nazis so it’s fair to assume he’ll soon be calling for trials at Nuremberg.

Reality has these alarmists cornered like the rats that they are and, as everyone knows, that’s when rats are the most dangerous. They are getting desperate and trying to ram through as much of their agenda as they possibly can before their house of cards collapses and we throw them out on their tin ears.

Ray, I didn’t mean to compare your opinions with the Club of Rome, etc. Sorry, I see how it looked like that, I realize that you are not the “typical” doomsayer. I only meant to examine why it is so easy to predict shortages, even though all past such predictions have failed.

I do, however, dispute as a matter of fact that few large oil & gas fields have been recently discovered.
A short internet search, for example, brought up the following news articles (I haven’t tried to verify them):

These are not insignificant finds, and I doubt that this is a complete list (would be an amazing accident if it were).

My point is: The efficiency of energy use is continually increasing — this produces productivity increases and makes more expensive energy economically reasonable. At the same time, the technology for both prospecting and recovery of energy resources is improving rapidly. (In fact, an argument can be made that it is the increased use of energy itself that makes these improvements possible.) There is no guarentee, of course, that the combination of increased production/efficiency/productivity will always outpace increased demand — but so far energy cost has remained nearly constant or declined as its use increased (by orders of magnitude) over the last 150 years.

This has also allowed an unprecedented (in Human history) explosion of wealth creation.

It is not possible to predict the future, so it is easy to ignore unknowable future technological advances in energy production and use. When one extrapolates demand, but not the technology of production and productivity, this always leads to predictions of shortages. If the last 150 years are any guide, this is not an accurate method of predicting the future.

If this sounds like having a tiger by the tail — yes, that is what the Human race has been doing since the start of civilization. It is admitedly not comfortable hanging on (and there is no guarentee that we can) — but the consequences of letting go are easily predictable.

Ray: To be clear, I know you are not suggesting that we “let go” (in the metaphor of my last paragraph, post #81). You are, instead, urging caution and analysis as we move forward.

However, GreenPeace, Club of Rome, and many of the AGW’ers are, in my opinion, working to derail the progress of the Human race.

The charge that I’m making “…the typical human mistake of always expecting tomorrow to be like today.” is a valid one — except that I don’t see any viable alternative to the continuation of progress, and therefore think that we have no alternative but to work as hard as possible to keep it going.

BobC, thanks for your last posts. I have a feeling we are in violent agreement just dickering about the numbers.

I agree with your characterization of Greenpeace, AGW’ers et al. I am convinced that if someone cracked the cold fusion experiment they would come up with some dam reason why we should never implement it. We can only hope and pray that it gets so cold so fast that they can be made to back off all the insane nonsense (Cap and Trade) they intend to force on the rest of us. They don’t seem to realize that when they push mega amounts of money in a direction that is a waste of time that people can actually die as a result of that. But maybe they don’t care, they seem a bit suicidal to me.

Cap and Trade scares the crap out of me because it is so BIG and has the capacity to have huge unintended consequences. I agree we have no choice but to try to keep it going as long as possible, I have a kid and I want her to have all the opportunities I had.

This ocean heat thing is just a predictable tactic. You can’t win the argument that you started with choose another. How does one get a heat quantity of a huge body of salt water with all the currents and salinity gradients present anyway? I took physics and thermodynamics a long time ago but I have to admit I don’t know how to approach this question.

Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated mean undiscovered volumes of 3.65 billion barrels of oil, 1.85 trillion cubic feet of associated/dissolved natural gas, and 148 million barrels of natural gas liquids in the Bakken Formation

That is consistent with my earlier post of about 4.3 billion. Take a look again maybe I am reading something wrong, could not find a date on the document just a year 2008.

Estimates are just that, estimates. I guess I might be a bit more myopic then you with regards to oil. I watch oil trading I don’t trade it myself. I watch it because I use it as an indicator for other things. Estimates of oil in the ground have absolutely no effect on oil price. As we have seen estimates go up and down radically. The market which is where the price is discovered looks at only a few things, available supply, current consumption, and the value of the currency oil is priced in, the dollar.

I bring up all this economic hoo-ha to point out that it’s an economic problem and a geologic problem. Last year the world was burning through about 85 million barrels a day, its not doing that now but then it was. During that same time the dollar was pushed down to 70 on its index. The production was pumping as fast as it could to supply the 85 million a day, and this is the salient point. Price is determined at the margins, the last available barrel if you will. In the past we had excess pumping capacity over the years that extra capacity has shrunk. As long as you are underneath max capacity your ok once you start to even touch it prices go bonkers. The rate you can get it out is more of the defining point of this discussion then even proven reserves are. One of the nasty things about oil fields is if you try to pump it too quickly you can ruin the field. This is because if a droplet of oil is a bit above the oil mass, as long as it has contact it can and will flow into the mass. If that contact is broken too quickly by extracting as fast as you can you risk leaving that oil behind and requiring new expensive techniques to recover it, if it’s recoverable at all.

You are of course correct we are always coming up with new cool ways to boost production and do more work with less fuel. But economics comes into play here also. There are fields that would require more energy to develop than you would recoup in the crude you pumped out. Until cheaper ways are found to get that crude it will just sit there because nobody is going to spend the money to go get it.

Again, I hope to heaven I am completely wrong about all of this. I hope they find dirt cheap methods to move astronomical amounts of oil to the surface for our use, and deposits that dwarf the monster fields of the 1950’s. But right now, right here, I only have what’s right in front of me. For me, that means I need to keep an eye on a plan B for myself and those I love.

I know what you mean. My wife and I have been thinking along those lines as well.

I have a lot of respect for traders (see post #72) — they put their money where their mouth is. Problem is, we’re all pretty much bet to the limit on the success of civilization — very little choice there. (Although you wouldn’t think so by some people’s actions: Greenpeace, AGW’ers, etc.) Although I won’t be putting any money on it, I take hope in the fact that, historically, Human ingenuity (when it isn’t suppressed) has always triumphed over scarcity and adversity; and it has usually been completely unpredictable — the reason why it isn’t (can’t be) figured into future forcasts.

(I’m so far off topic that I’ve forgotten what this thread is about! I think I’ll leave it there.)

Ray Hibbard – I am so glad to have found this web site. The two things that break the global warming theory’s back for me is :

Ray, I’m afraid the back is not even bruised let alone broken. I mean if it were that easy, AGW would have been dead and buried as a concern a long long long time ago.

Ray Hibbard: 1: The fact that CO2 absorption is well past its saturation point. If it can’t absorb any more energy then higher concentrations can’t be responsible for global warming.

This is silly statement, actually laughable, since as the atmosphere thins with altitude, it necessarily becomes more transparent to IR and all other forms of light. Hence claims that “CO2 absorption is well past its saturation point” only has meaning at a specific altitude, since at higher altitudes the bands can not be saturated.

Further, saturation is also thickness dependent. Is the band saturated over 1 cm of air the air column, or 2 cm or 3 cm? 1 KM? Through the entire atmosphere?

If there is saturation over a thickness of 1 cm then one can expect 100% absorption over a depth of 1 cm. and a mean free path of X cm. However if there is saturation over a thickness of 2 cm then the mean free path is 2X cm, and on average the light will travel twice the distance as before, before it has a 50% chance of being scattered in a downward direction. If the bands are saturated and the mean free path is 2X cm then heat will leak out of a given thickness twice as fast as it would if the bands were saturated and the mean free path were X cm.

So having absorption bands saturated means little to nothing, but it probably does impress the Scientifically illiterate in here, and those who know better and continue to lie about the ramifications – like those from whom you got that little snippit of propaganda.

The more CO2 you have, the more backscatter you have and the more backscatter you have, the longer it takes for the heat to radiate to higher altitudes, and therefore the greater the heating at lower altitudes.

Ray Hibbard: 2: The fact that the ice cores say just the opposite of what the theory states namely that higher concentrations drive the increase in temperature when in fact it is the other way around. This is easily explainable to anyone that understands how dissolved gases react to a higher temperature.

Another silly statement. It is explainable by the fact that in a globaly warming climate, oceans take longer to warm before they start out-gassing CO2. Hence, historically, the lag of CO2 rise behind temperature rise. Of course historically CO2 has not driven warming. But that does not mean CO2 can’t be driving now.

Simpletons often think that there is just one variable controlling a characteristic being observed. Denialists are like that, ignoring the CO2 variable even when basic physics tells us that it is not possible to do so.

In reality, the climate system can have more than one variable driving it. Push the system with a non CO2 variable and the climate system’s orbit changes and CO2 and the other feedbacks follow, which is what has happened historically. Push the climate system with CO2, and it must lead, the orbit changes and the other feedbacks follow, which is what is happening now due to human CO2 emissions.

David Evans – And where did the extra CO2 come from before 1950? High school chemistry: a warmer ocean releases more of its dissolved CO2 into the atmosphere.

But where is it coming from now? Human CO2 emissions.

The fact that CO2 was not leading temperature historically is irrelevant. The climate system can have more than one variable driving it. Push the system with a non CO2 variable and the climate system’s orbit changes and CO2 and the other feedbacks follow, which is what has happened historically. Push the climate system with CO2, and it must necessarly lead, the orbit changes and the other feedbacks follow, which is what is happening now due to human CO2 emissions.

David Evans – The little ice age in the 1600s and 1700s was obviously not caused by humans. Since 1750 the global temperature has been recovering, with alternating warming and cooling periods of about 30 years each around a steady underlying warming trend.

Why would “global temperatures” recover from 1750 after a “Little Ice age” that was neither “Global”, nor an “Ice Age”, but merely modest, transient, regional cooling?

By the way, Natural climate variability can account for about .5′C of variance in the earth’s surface temperature. Current temperatures are 1.5 times that. Well outside of the range of natural occurrance.

Claiming a recovery from a Little Ice Age that wasn’t is beyond hilarious.

[...] Ocean temperatures: The new bluff in alarmism The alarmists have abandoned air temperatures as a measure of global temperature, because the air temperature graphs are just too hard to argue with (like the second figure below, from the Skeptics Handbook). Instead they’ve switched to ocean temperatures, which they often disguise as ocean heat content (a huge number like 15×10²² Joules sounds much more scary than the warming it implies of 0.003° C/year)…. (And once again, we find that hard data shows the Earth is cooling, and that the people pushing for the carbon tax know it. Oops!) [...]

Mike David – There is no evidence that global warming exists. There is only evidence of natural variation. I believe you said that Jo but I just wanted to repeat it as some still believe the unnatural warming exists.

We know that for the entire globe as a whole, the natural level of variation is about .5′C. Any change below that over a period of a couple of decades can simply have a natural cause. Outside that range and you are dealing with something new and measured. Current temps are no .75′C above the average, or .25′C above the natural level of variability.

I really get a laugh when denialists look at a trend of 2 or three years and see a .05′C fall and proclaim as finished, the ongoing rise in temps, when in fact over that short a period such trivially small change in temp can not be ascribed any significance at all.

BobC – Actually, the “pattern” of warming over the last 100 years is easily explained by the adjustments in the data. If you simply look at the raw data (which is, undoubtably, still contaminated by Urban Heat Island effect),

I was refering to ocean data. There are no Urban Heat islands on the ocean.

I just re-read the article and it’s amazing how they take CO2 induced warming as being some irrefutable fact:

“Core samples from glaciers and from the mud beneath lakes in the Andes, the Amazon and elsewhere have built up a history of the world’s climate and the message is crystal clear. It is that changes have taken place in the past, during the six or seven thousand years of our agriculture-based civilizations, that are just as big as the ones we are facing from today’s CO2 warming.”

I suspect that they actually realize that their evidence flies in the face of the CO2 warming theory but, by suggesting such, they would risk having their paper black-balled by liberal professors all over the world.

MikeM – Let me guess…. Next you will assert the discredited alarmist pablum that the Medieval Warming Period was just some local European weather event?

You mean that period where some regional temperatures were .4′C cooler than today?

You call that warm?

MikeM – CO2 is the primary gas of life on the planet

Phosphorus, Nitrogen, etc. are also vital to life on the planet, yet Phosphates and Nitrates are universally recognized as being pollutants when deposited in unnatural concentrations by man. It can be reasonably argued that CO2 produced by man is man made waste, and is an environmental contaminate.

MikeM – All signs are that that was GLOBAL warming event and, not only that, that much more evidence that getting warmer is on average BETTER for life on this planet.

Not at the current rate of temperature increase, along with some long term side effects of higher CO2 levels and side effects of the temperature.

The Biosphere can and will adjust to a higher temperature regime, but can not do so rapidly without a significant increase in the rate of extinction – and that rate already is as fast as the greatest extinction periods in earth’s history.

Give the Biophere, 50,000 years to heat as will occur over the next 100 and there is no problem.

Other problems include the acidification of the ocean and the extinction of all ocean life that extrude calcium carbonate shells that will dissolve in more acidic waters. That means the extinction of all corals, all snails, and a very large component of ocean plankton. Ocean species generally have very low tollerance to changes in temperature and water PH.

Then there is the issue of sea level rise, the issue of stronger and more frequent storms and the greater variability of the microclimate making it more difficult to predict which crops should be grown where.

In addition there will be greater desertification in the equitorial regions, and a general movement of the grain belts to northern regions where there is essentially no workable soil as it has been scraped off and deposited in the mid latitudes during the last glaciation cycle.

By the way, Natural climate variability can account for about .5′C of variance in the earth’s surface temperature. Current temperatures are 1.5 times that. Well outside of the range of natural occurrance.

Mister Troll, I mean Mister Daemon, I mean Mister McCormick:

You, sir, must be referring to the climate inside of your home, because you are not referring to the natural climate, and the problem might reside within the HVAC system of your home, and you might start by checking the thermostat.

If you can make any rational arguments against the information there, then have at it. Don’t stop there — Download the handbook, give copies to your friends, let them try to falsify it as well. (You might inadvertently make some converts.)

Please note, however, that the type of arguments you have been using to date (ad hominem, argument from authority) are not logical arguments but logical fallicies.

“Another silly statement. It is explainable by the fact that in a globaly warming climate, oceans take longer to warm before they start out-gassing CO2. Hence, historically, the lag of CO2 rise behind temperature rise. Of course historically CO2 has not driven warming. But that does not mean CO2 can’t be driving now.”

Damien thanks for proving my point with more words than I thought were required. I guess I should have been more long winded. From your statements should I believe that one: you have decided Mr. Gores little low resolution chart is no longer a part of your argument or two: the appearance of mankind changed the natural order of physics and chemistry.

“Of course historically CO2 has not driven warming. But that does not mean CO2 can’t be driving now.”

This is priceless. “Are we supposed to believe that in your kitchen it only takes 5 minutes to cook grits when it takes 20 minutes every where else? Is there something magical about your kitchen” From the movie My Cousin Vinnie. Just what in your esteemed opinion caused CO2 to magically “become” a driver of Global warming when historically it has not been, the appearance of Global warming theorists?

Damien McCormick: “Another silly statement. It is explainable by the fact that in a globaly warming climate, oceans take longer to warm before they start out-gassing CO2. Hence, historically, the lag of CO2 rise behind temperature rise. Of course historically CO2 has not driven warming. But that does not mean CO2 can’t be driving now.”

Gorebots around the world whine in unison that our puny addition of CO2 somehow lowers ocean pH and that that is killing all the coral reefs but here you are saying that a warmer ocean outgases CO2. Which is it? Are oceans gaining CO2 or losing CO2? You alarmists always seem to want things going both ways as with your lame attempt, (which failed), to change the catch phrase from ‘global warming’ to ‘climate change’.

As for the last two sentences already commented on by Ray, the first one is based on fact and the other is based on fancy.

Let me correct it for you: Of course historically CO2 has not driven warming and, without having any convincing empirical evidence to the contrary, there is no reason to suspect that CO2 is magically doing so now.

Damien, did you know that termites emit FOUR TIMES the amount of GHG than the GHG emitted from human activities? Termites ALONE!

Brian: I can think of no previous civilization which has come close to such hubris.

Nor have less excuse for having it. After hundreds of years of rapid advance of knowledge and the quality of human life based upon the principle of the discovery and application of the invariant principles of natural process (aka science and engineering), there is no excuse.

They are relying on magic. Magic (events contrary to nature) has not, does not, and cannot happen except in fantasy. However, that does not keep the Damien’s of the world from pointing at a Road Runner Cartoon as an example that gravity does not work or that one can survive a fall into an abyss. A climate simulation is simply a more complicated and less entertaining cartoon. I has as much relation to reality as a Road Runner Cartoon. Unfortunately, that relationship for the most part is small and superficial.

At the core, the climate simulations are not even connected to reality by being false. They are simply arbitrary equations driven by arbitrary coefficients corrected by arbitrary adjustments so that the preconceived result is output: CO2 created by humans has multiple orders of magnitude more impact upon the climate than anything produced by anything else – including natural sources of CO2. Some how a CO2 molecule produced by human activity “knows” that fact and gets really busy causing global cooling – oops – global warming – oops – climate change – oops – global cooling – oops ….

Damien like so many of his fellow AWG wankers START with the presumption that human activity is the problem and that anything they don’t like can be blamed upon such activity. Hence they can have global cooling, global warming, global stasis, global change occurring all at once and caused by exactly the same thing. That way, they can stand on every side of every argument and feel they win. Such creatures cannot be reasoned with because they don’t use the faculty of reason. They don’t need evidence or logic because they ready know the conclusion.

Our challenge is not to convince them of anything. We know we can live and live well without them. We also know that they exist largely because of the efforts of our kind. Thus it is our challenge is to make sure that they experience living without us. They will thereby learn that reality is real or go extinct.

First the distances where 100% absorption would occur in approximately the first 10 meters, this has been proven in the lab, fairly straight forward experiment (See Heinz Hug). Not completely sure what you are referring to by “scattered” is that a technical term?

In any case if you are referring to re-emitted IR from the CO2 that would require an electron orbital shift, CO2 does not absorb IR by that mechanism. Electron orbit shifts only applies to things such as florescence or lasing. IR is absorption is due to covalent bond stretching and bending.

What this means is when the IR is absorbed at the 2.7, 4.3 and 15 micrometers, the energy is instantly converted to heat as increased vibration of the molecule most of which will be transferred to other common air components, oxygen and nitrogen . If the energy is retransmitted as IR radiation it’s going to be across the entire IR spectrum in the same way any black body does, not just 2.7, 4.3 and 15 micrometers.

The IR absorption spectrum for water vapor is about 3 times wider than that of CO2. I can attest to this as when we run IR spectrograms of samples we took great pains to make sure the sample was dry. There are about 30 times as much water vapor in air as CO2. IR absorption by water vapor would completely overwhelm anything increased CO2 could possible be responsible for.

I am a firm believer Occam’s razor when it comes to science. The global warming crowd of which you seem a proud member reminds me of the F111 fighter plane. They put humongous jet engines on that thing and after a 1000 tweaks here and there got it to fly.
The saying was the F111 proved you could make a cinder block fly if you had enough thrust. There is a very old cartoon that used to circulate in science journals because only scientists could appreciate the joke. It showed a mathematician working on the blackboard with very complex equations, in the middle of his proof there was a box. Inside the box he had written “A miraculous miracle occurs here!”

I think it’s you that needs to go back to the drawing board; I’m sure you know where it is. Your crowd has made enough trips back to it recently, please try to come up with something that is consistent with observed data not computer models or fairy dust. Just try that’s all I’m asking.

Daemon’s elimination of the LIA is interesting it is this and the MWP that is so crucial – as Michael Mann understood to the alarmist argument. Do you think that Daemon still thinks the Hockey Stick represents reality??!!

Daemon’s elimination of the LIA is interesting. It is this and the MWP that is so crucial – as Michael Mann understood – to the alarmist argument. Do you think that Daemon still thinks the Hockey Stick represents reality??!!

Ray – Damien thanks for proving my point with more words than I thought were required.

Your point was addressed, you simply ignored the answer, or are a bit numb upstairs to comprehend it.

So here it is again.

The climate system has many inputs, some major and some minor. Push on the system with a non-CO2 input and the climate system’s orbit changes and CO2 and the other feedbacks follow. Push on the climate system with CO2, and it must necessarily lead, the orbit changes and the other feedbacks follow.

Ray – Just what in your esteemed opinion caused CO2 to magically “become” a driver of Global warming when historically it has not been

The cause is sustained human emission of CO2 at a rate much higher than the biosphere’s ability to re-sequester it.
Hence CO2 level’s continue to rise, and therefore global mean temperatures continue to rise. But that is not actually the argument. The argument is how much temperature will rise under various emission scenarios.

Rather arrogant since it only requires the overturning of 100 years of radiative physics.

Ray Hibbard – First the distances where 100% absorption would occur in approximately the first 10 meters, this has been proven in the lab, fairly straight forward experiment (See Heinz Hug).

The experiments also show that higher Co2 levels = higher IR backscatter and higher surface temps.

Ray Hibbard – Not completely sure what you are referring to by “scattered” is that a technical term?

It’s a process, and trivial to understand.

IR is absorbed by CO2 and other gasses, and then reradiated in a random direction. IR comes primarily from the surface of the earth and virtually none from the icy cold of space, hence the absorption and re-radiation of the radiation turns an outward flow of radiation from the surface of the earth into space, into a random scattering pattern in which 50% of the absorbed radiation is emitted back down toward the ground.

Hence the absorption and re-radiation impede the rate at which IR can escape from the lower atmosphere, and hence increase the temperature of the lower atmosphere and surface.

Ray Hibbard – In any case if you are referring to re-emitted IR from the CO2 that would require an electron orbital shift, CO2 does not absorb IR by that mechanism. Electron orbit shifts only applies to things such as florescence or lasing. IR is absorption is due to covalent bond stretching and bending. What this means is when the IR is absorbed at the 2.7, 4.3 and 15 micrometers, the energy is instantly converted to heat as increased vibration of the molecule most of which will be transferred to other common air components, oxygen and nitrogen .

You are confused. The energy isn’t instantly converted to heat. It’s a quantum event. The absorption of IR leads to more energetic bond vibration, but not kinetic energy as seen in velocity of the molecule as a whole.

Ray Hibbard – If the energy is retransmitted as IR radiation it’s going to be across the entire IR spectrum in the same way any black body does, not just 2.7, 4.3 and 15 micrometers.

You really are grasping at straws. Your implicit assumption is that atmospheric scientists are misunderstanding basic radiative physics in their calculations. Such an assumption is about as believable as claiming that NASA does not include gravity in its space flight calculations. If you have evidence that basic radiative physics is being misunderstood by climate change scientists, then please provide it for publication in the peer reviewed scientific literature. I’m sure they look forward to seeing your complete lack of evidence.

Ray Hibbard – The IR absorption spectrum for water vapor is about 3 times wider than that of CO2. I can attest to this as when we run IR spectrograms of samples we took great pains to make sure the sample was dry. There are about 30 times as much water vapor in air as CO2. IR absorption by water vapor would completely overwhelm anything increased CO2 could possible be responsible for.

Unfortunately for your ridiculous argument, water isn’t in the drivers seat since it remains in rough thermal/pressure equilibrium with the air that surrounds it. Lower the pressure or lower the temperature and it rains. CO2 on the other hand is in the drivers seat since it doesn’t rain out of the atmosphere to any significant degree, but remains blanketing the earth irrespective of the temperature or pressure. In other words, more CO2 = more heating = more water vapour = more heating = more water vapour = more heating…. Fortunately the process is self limiting.

…
At the core, the climate simulations are not even connected to reality by being false. They are simply arbitrary equations driven by arbitrary coefficients corrected by arbitrary adjustments so that the preconceived result is output: CO2 created by humans has multiple orders of magnitude more impact upon the climate than anything produced by anything else – including natural sources of CO2. Some how a CO2 molecule produced by human activity “knows” that fact and gets really busy causing global cooling – oops – global warming – oops – climate change – oops – global cooling – oops ….

How true! I’m being lazy and pasting part of a comment I made on another thread that is relevant to your observation — namely that the modelers don’t even use correct historical CO2 data.

This data follows closely an exponential curve with a yearly increase of r = 0.41% and a doubling time of 170 years. (doubling time, tau = (2009-1958)*log(2)/log(388.78/315.71); 1+r = 2^(1/tau) for a rough estimate from the endpoints — a least squares fit to the whole curve gives essentially the same result.)

One excuse sometimes heard for this is that the 2.5x rate for CO2 “stands in” for the increase of other greenhouse gases such as methane. I have never seen, however, any data that would show (or even suggest) that CO2 and methane are coupled in such a fashion. In the recent past methane showed a significant rate decrease for a number of years while CO2 continued to climb.

The fact is, that these GCM models supposedly based on atmospheric physics are routinely run with completely unrealistic and non-historic CO2 concentration increases (2.5 times larger than the rate for the last 50 years). Instead of putting in the measured rate of increase of other gases such as methane (and having to try to explain the rate variations) they make coupling assumptions that are completely unjustified by either theory or measurement.

Thus, the output of these models (and the IPCC’s conclusions from them) have NO real-world implications whatsoever, and there is NO BASIS for basing any policy decisions on them.

Brian G Valentine:
July 11th, 2009 at 1:15 am
“I’ll just saunter in there, and tell those Jo Nova deniers a thing or two, and that’ll show them!”
End of Quote.
—————
A very interesting quote Brian, am I right in assuming
it is a “Damien McCormick (Daemon)” quote,
if so where is it from please. ?
————-

BobC, Post 114, an excellant and easily understood series of points,
elsewhere ie,http://globalwarmingskeptics.info/forums/index.php
I would like to use that post in part or whole in another related piece
I intend putting together and posting at the above GWS forum.
Would this be OK.
BTW – Please excuse my ignorance, but are you BobC or Lionel, or both.
If the latter which would you prefer to be described as.
Also can I / we have a link to the appropriate post / thread / forum or blog
the post was in please.
————-

Damien McCormick – Trying to dismiss the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age as local or regional rather than global is really all anyone needs to know of you.
As pointed out already, the reason for this is to support Mann’s Hockey Stick, so pushed by the politically motivated IPCC.

If the IPCC is supposed to be about science then why is it’s “mission” to show / gather scientific evidence that shows human CO2 emissions have caused global warming.
That by any interpretation is a very focussed and predetermined result,
not open in any way at all.
Here and at many similar sites the real meaning of
what the IPCC is about is clearly understood,
as is the reliance on and defence of the all important Hockey Stick.
For clarity that is Micheal Mann’s 1998 study supposedly using over 400 data sets, of which only 112 where actually used. This inconvient truth was further compounded by the fact that one of the 112 sets used was wieghted by a factor of 396..
So in effect only one data set was actually plotted.
Fraud, plain and simple fraud, for a politically motivated, predetermined,
and desired “scientific result”,
yet Damien McCormick you defend and rely on such “science”…

The idiocy of this stance is shown by merely remembering that during Roman times it is generally held as correct that temperatures were about 2 to 3 degrees warmer than present.
Life was good, it was warmer.. The IPCC has for some reason gone ga-ga over the supposed danger of a possible rise over the next century or so.
(I like many think such a constant rise will NOT occur,
and in reality it has not been rising for all of this century so far,
since 2001 global temperature has been in stasis or falling..Hence the topic of this thread originally, which we’ll hopefully eventually get back to..)
History tells us that such a temperature rise is something to look forward to,
not tax oursleves into economic oblivion over.

Your “interpretation” of CO2 absorbtion / saturation / effect is equally as biased, and bares no relation to the observed warming seen throughout the depth of the atmosphere.
David Archibald has done a repeatable and verifiable experiment showing the saturation effect of CO2, this you also seem to have ignored.
The experiment showed the effect of CO2 is logarithmic,
the first 20 ppm being by far and a way the most important after that
the effect tails off very, very rapidly.
At present levels even a doubling of CO2 would not add more than a few mere tenths of a degree centigrade to global temperatures.
You make no mention of the observed relationship between CO2 and water vapour concentrations in the upper troposphere that completely contradict the IPCC’s modelled and assumed warming mechanism and resultant patterns.

All in all AGW has been reliant on falsified data and modelled projections of some otehr “reality”.
Yet again another data set the ARGO measurements have followed the same path of being altered to produce the desired results.
AGW did fool a lot of people for a long time,
but now using the same false methods over and over again, in so many different fields of research,
more and more people have realised and are going to continue seeing with ever faster speed what is happening.

The re-vamped Hockey Stick did not last long did it.
Then there is the GISS temperature record.
MLO.
Ice Core measurements, and historical reconstructions of CO2 levels.
And now ARGOS buoys.

At the evil heart of all of this is that the UN is a POLITICAL organization not a science organization. The IPCC is BOUND to supporting the political objectives of the UN and the UN’s number ONE objective is … to remain in existance!

The IPCC was spawned as the result of the UNFCCC WAY back in 1992 when signers agreed that greenhouse gases MUST be held to 1990 levels by the year 2000, (and just look at the carnage that resulted in not obeying that idea? /sarc). Per Wikipedia:

The role of the IPCC is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation.

So they have already made the FOREGONE CONCLUSION that the risk exists and, damn it, we’re going to spend a lot of your money to figure out how big the risk is and how we expect you to fix it. The IPCC is therefore nothing other than a bunch of thugs placing themselves in position of power over other people and spending OUR money to research all the ways they can find to prove that they deserve to stay in that position. I. E. … it’s the same as the UN. There is as much chance of the UN saying they are no longer necessary as there is that the sun will not rise tomorrow.

Bob C @ 114 was quoting a portion of my comment @104. Bob C and Lionell Griffith are two separate individuals who’s only connection is via this blog.

I have no problem with your using my comments. Just give them a fair context and appropriate attribution. My goal is to stimulate thought and offer intellectual ammunition for protection from and responding to the growing insanity in our world.

That is the prime directive for ANY bureaucracy – private or public – and not just the UN. The last thing that will occur to a bureaucracy is that their only valid reason for existence is to do whatever is necessary for them to no longer be necessary.

Causing actual positive real world results often eliminates the justification for continuation. Hence, the primary outputs from bureaucracies are words, pictures, forms, rules, regulations, and conferences. All with the the intended result that aggrandizes power over other people’s lives and resources. This will inevitably make the original problem that stimulated them to exist worse by even their own standards. Thereby justifying doing more of the same.

Basic Bureaucracy 101: For all n, n*X won’t solve the problem but (n+1)*X will and then loop until all resources and lives are consumed. See any government since the first government for instructive examples.

Lionell Griffith, my apologies, and thank you @ 117.
Great blog btw.
I can not find the page the original comment BobC @114 quotes,
is it possible for a link to it directly please.
————-

Given Damien McCormick (Daemon)@ 90 states amongst other “questionable” physics..
” The more CO2 you have, the more backscatter you have and the more backscatter you have, the longer it takes for the heat to radiate to higher altitudes, and therefore the greater the heating at lower altitudes. ”
End of quote.

Excerpt from page 8,
” neither the atmosphere nor the Earth’s surface absorbs and
reradiates radiant energy. Both absorb radiation and both emit radiation.
Over a sufficient period of time, the total energy content of the absorption
will equal the total energy content of the emission if the temperatures remain
constant. However, the number of photons absorbed and their wavelengths
will not equal the number of photons emitted. Moreover, the set of
wavelengths absorbed will not be the same as the set of wavelengths
emitted.
For all practical purposes, re-radiation does not take place in the
Earth-atmosphere system. ”
End of excerpt.

The Damien McCormick (Daemon)quote above assumes the wavelength of the absorbed and reradiated photon stays the same (which I assume is somewhat at odds with the laws of energy conservation).

Yes, there is reradiated appropriate wavelength (ie 15um) photons higher in the atmosphere, but they probably come from other sources such as water vapour that absorbed higher frequency photons. The water vapour then re-emitted a lower frequency wavelength photon, not from CO2 re-emitting the same wavelength of photon as it absorbed,
because CO2 simply can not do that.

Derek – If the IPCC is supposed to be about science then why is it’s “mission” to show / gather scientific evidence that shows human CO2 emissions have caused global warming.

The IPCC’s mission is not to show human CO2 emissions have caused global warming.
Their mission is to review the data that is in the peer reviewed scientific press, and weigh the various results from a variety of works in each area of study and provide a weighted distribution of the results of the scientific inquiry. And the fact is, all the peer reviewed scientific press points to human CO2 emissions as causing global warming. It really is as simple as that.

Dereks source asserts – For all practical purposes, re-radiation does not take place in the Earth-atmosphere system.

Mindless. Completley mindless. If CO2 didn’t re-radiate then it would exist in thermal disequilibrium with the rest of the atmosphere, which is a violation of the basic principles of physics. It would be an ionized plasma, mixed in with a cold gas. Quite impossible. CO2 re-radiates. The laws of physics demand it.

Derek – The Damien McCormick (Daemon)quote above assumes the wavelength of the absorbed and reradiated photon stays the same (which I assume is somewhat at odds with the laws of energy conservation).

Not at all. Absorption of photons is a quantum event obeying quantum emission rules.

Derek – The water vapour then re-emitted a lower frequency wavelength photon, not from CO2 re-emitting the same wavelength of photon as it absorbed, because CO2 simply can not do that.

Rubbish. At times CO2 can re-emit energy at the same frequency at which it was absorbed, and actually, other gasses can also emit into the frequency range that CO2 absorbs as photons from those energy regions are Compton scattered.

Derek – Your “interpretation” of CO2 absorbtion / saturation / effect is equally as biased, and bares no relation to the observed warming seen throughout the depth of the atmosphere. David Archibald has done a repeatable and verifiable experiment showing the saturation effect of CO2

Is this the same Archibald going on about another impending “Dalton Minimum” where the earth’s temperature dipped a whopping .1′C ? Well it’s risen .75′C so far this century. 7.5 times that amount. Yet denilists like Archibald are trying to scare the public with a quack story about imminent and dangerous global cooling.

Hilarious.

Derek – you also seem to have ignored.

Really? Show me which peer-reviewed scientific journals the distinguished Archibald has had his work published in which I have ignored.

Derek – The experiment showed the effect of CO2 is logarithmic, the first 20 ppm being by far and a way the most important after that the effect tails off very, very rapidly.

How linear do you want the curve? I can make it as straight as you like. Ahaha.

Derek – At present levels even a doubling of CO2 would not add more than a few mere tenths of a degree centigrade to global temperatures.

We have only increased CO2 by about 40% while currently temperatures are .75′C (and rising) over the baseline for a CO2 increase of about 100 ppm. Even if CO2 levels were stabalised today, temperatures would continue to rise about another .5′C. But of course it’s not the current .75′C temperature increase that is the problem, it is the looming 3′C-6′C temperature increase that is projected by the end of this century should CO2 emission rates not be reduced to around 10% to 20% of their current levels.

As to the magnitude of the rise, CO2 accounts for about 4′C in the earth’s surface temperature, a rise of 1/3rd would therefore account for about 1.3′C of warming. Precisely in line with what is observed and computed.

Doubling the CO2 concentration can be expected to produce about a 4′C rise (not including H20 amplification)

Derek – You make no mention of the observed relationship between CO2 and water vapour concentrations in the upper troposphere that completely contradict the IPCC’s modelled and assumed warming mechanism and resultant patterns.

How many times do you have to be told, and told and told again that water vapour is not ignored. In fact if it were not for the magnifying effects of water vapour, CO2 doubling would not be a problem at all.

“This animated graph shows measurements of the water vapor amounts in the upper troposphere and stratosphere from the Halogen Occultation Experiment (HALOE) instrument on the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite. HALOE retrieved specific humidity, which refers to the actual amount of water vapor in the air. The relationship between HALOE water vapor and changes in temperature were used to confirm a positive water vapor feedback in the upper troposphere. Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio”

According to the US Environmental Protection Agency 11% of natural sources of atmospheric methane comes from termites. However, 60% of global methane emissions are estimated to come from human activity.

Mike M – Of course historically CO2 has not driven warming and, without having any convincing empirical evidence to the contrary, there is no reason to suspect that CO2 is magically doing so now.

Magically? Ignorance thy name is Mike!

No Emperical Evidence? You simply ignore it, or are too numb to understand it. For example, the observed temperature rise has been above the level of natural variability for the last 20 years. We expect to see temperature fluctuations of up to .5′C due to natural variation. Current global temps are now .75′C above historic norms and continuing to climb at a rate of about 2′C per century.

Again.

Historically – climate change was being driven by slow variations in the earth’s orbit relative to it’s rotational axis.

This is really interesting (thank you to Damien for inadvertently bringing it to our attention!):

In his post #123 Mike M quotes from Wikipedia about IPCC.

That quote was taken from the IPCC’s own website (www.ipcc.ch) and used to read in full (still does on Wiki):

“The role of the IPCC is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information RELEVANT TO UNDERSTANDING THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF RISK OF HUMAN-INDUCED CLIMATE CHANGE, ITS POTENTIAL IMPACTS AND OPTIONS FOR ADAPTATION AND MITIGATION. IPCC reports should be neutral with respect to policy, although they may need to deal objectively with scientific, technical and socio-economic factors relevant to the application of particular policies. Review is an essential part of the IPCC process. Since the IPCC is an intergovernmental body, review of IPCC documents should involve both peer review by experts and review by governments” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change)

I know this for a fact because I used to go there to get that same quote verbatim from their “Mandate”. I have copied and pasted it several times on blogs.

Guess what? There is no longer any “Mandate”. They have removed it! There is an “Organization” instead, and they have CHANGED the wording completely. Here it is:

“The Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change is the leading body for the assessment of climate change, established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) to provide the world with a clear scientific view on the current state of climate change and its potential environmental and socio-economic consequences.

The IPCC is a scientific body. It reviews and assesses the most recent scientific, technical and socio-economic information produced worldwide RELEVANT TO THE UNDERSTANDING OF CLIMATE CHANGE. It does not conduct any research nor does it monitor climate related data or parameters. Thousands of scientists from all over the world contribute to the work of the IPCC on a voluntary basis. Review is an essential part of the IPCC process, to ensure an objective and complete assessment of current information. Differing viewpoints existing within the scientific community are reflected in the IPCC reports…”

The IPCC is an intergovernmental body, and it is open to all member countries of UN and WMO. Governments are involved in the IPCC work as they can participate in the review process and in the IPCC plenary sessions, where main decisions about the IPCC work programme are taken and reports are accepted, adopted and approved. The IPCC Bureau and Chairperson are also elected in the plenary sessions.

Because of its scientific and intergovernmental nature, the IPCC embodies a unique opportunity to provide rigorous and balanced scientific information to decision makers. By endorsing the IPCC reports, governments acknowledge the authority of their scientific content. The work of the organization is therefore policy-relevant and yet policy-neutral, never policy-prescriptive.” (http://www.ipcc.ch/organization/organization.htm)

Emphasis (capitals) mine in both quotes. Helluva change in job description, or what?

Do a search on ipcc.ch for “mandate” and it is gone, non-existent, verschwunden, disappeared … it is an ex-mandate!

Am I the only one who thinks this is highly suspect, or do world organisations routinely chuck out their “mandates” and change horses mid-race??

I would love to see a discussion on the implications of this. Perhaps we need another thread, Joanne?

This is really interesting (thank you to Damien for inadvertently bringing it to our attention!):

In his post #123 Mike M quotes from Wikipedia about IPCC.

That quote was taken from the IPCC’s own website (www.ipcc.ch) and used to read in full (still does on Wiki):

“The role of the IPCC is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information RELEVANT TO UNDERSTANDING THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF RISK OF HUMAN-INDUCED CLIMATE CHANGE, ITS POTENTIAL IMPACTS AND OPTIONS FOR ADAPTATION AND MITIGATION. IPCC reports should be neutral with respect to policy, although they may need to deal objectively with scientific, technical and socio-economic factors relevant to the application of particular policies. Review is an essential part of the IPCC process. Since the IPCC is an intergovernmental body, review of IPCC documents should involve both peer review by experts and review by governments” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change)

I know this for a fact because I used to go there to get that same quote verbatim from their “Mandate”. I have copied and pasted it several times on blogs.

Guess what? There is no longer any “Mandate”. They have removed it! There is an “Organization” instead, and they have CHANGED the wording completely. Here it is:

“The Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change is the leading body for the assessment of climate change, established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) to provide the world with a clear scientific view on the current state of climate change and its potential environmental and socio-economic consequences.

The IPCC is a scientific body. It reviews and assesses the most recent scientific, technical and socio-economic information produced worldwide RELEVANT TO THE UNDERSTANDING OF CLIMATE CHANGE. It does not conduct any research nor does it monitor climate related data or parameters. Thousands of scientists from all over the world contribute to the work of the IPCC on a voluntary basis. Review is an essential part of the IPCC process, to ensure an objective and complete assessment of current information. Differing viewpoints existing within the scientific community are reflected in the IPCC reports…”

The IPCC is an intergovernmental body, and it is open to all member countries of UN and WMO. Governments are involved in the IPCC work as they can participate in the review process and in the IPCC plenary sessions, where main decisions about the IPCC work programme are taken and reports are accepted, adopted and approved. The IPCC Bureau and Chairperson are also elected in the plenary sessions.

Because of its scientific and intergovernmental nature, the IPCC embodies a unique opportunity to provide rigorous and balanced scientific information to decision makers. By endorsing the IPCC reports, governments acknowledge the authority of their scientific content. The work of the organization is therefore policy-relevant and yet policy-neutral, never policy-prescriptive.” (http://www.ipcc.ch/organization/organization.htm)

Emphasis (capitals) mine in both quotes. Helluva change in job description, or what?

Do a search on ipcc.ch for “mandate” and it is gone, non-existent, verschwunden, disappeared … it is an ex-mandate!

Am I the only one who thinks this is highly suspect, or do world organisations routinely chuck out their “mandates” and change horses mid-race??

I would love to hear other people’s take on this… are the IPCC getting ready to cover their tracks, or what? “No, we never said climate change was human-induced!”

Still not up to trying to falsify the Skeptic’s Handbook I see. Much easier to take potshots at other posters and ignore the many falsified predictions of AGW covered in Joanna’s text.

Actually, the goal for many of the politically motivated trolls is to suppress posting and readership on blogs that are “politically incorrect”. Unfortunately for them (and they know who they are), this blog is anchored by a coherent critique of the IPCC’s AGW claims that AGW proponents cannot logically argue against, but are reduced to the tactics used by, say, Damien.

Step it up Damien — show us you have some intellectual heft (if you do). Let us know, for instance, why AGW really doesn’t predict an upper atmospheric “hot spot”, and why all the scientists who predicted it were wrong. Or, perhaps, you can take the position that the hot spot really does exist and we just can’t measure it for some reason (please explain why).

Or, choose your own fight — take on anything in the Handbook.

None of us really expect you’re capable of even making a credible try at this.

and now I’ve saved a copy: Click on the image. Ta Da!
Let me know if the quality is not good. I can improve it. (Try magnifying the page, the detail should be in there).

Why have they changed it? Could it be they are getting a lot of google alerts from skeptics who link to this page with just the kind of comments you and I both use? Maybe after what, 18 years, they’ve realized it might not be an advantage to say you were really here all along to find a link to “human induced effects” i.e. anything but natural causes…

Magically? Ignorance thy name is Mike! … (blah blah … more ad hominems.. blah blah) … For example, the observed temperature rise has been above the level of natural variability for the last 20 years. … (blah blah blah) …. Are you so stupid as to think that there can only be one cause?

I NEVER stated that climate change was due to a single cause? Where did you get the idea that I stated that?

. “Above the level of natural variablity” Really? SAYS WHO DAMIEN ??? If true then the COOLING that occured prior to the warming was ALSO happening above the level of your alleged “natural vaiability”. You are stating absolute RUBBISH! You have ZERO to substantiate that anyone has actually nailed down and PROVEN that there is a ~limit~ to natural vaiability or to the RATE of change capable by nature.

Not only is carbon dioxide’s total greenhouse effect puny, mankind’s contribution to it is minuscule. The overwhelming majority (97%) of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere comes from nature, not from man. Volcanoes, swamps, rice paddies, fallen leaves, and even insects and bacteria produce carbon dioxide, as well as methane. According to the journal Science (Nov. 5, 1982), termites alone emit ten times more carbon dioxide than all the factories and automobiles in the world. Natural wetlands emit more greenhouse gases than all human activities combined. (If greenhouse warming is such a problem, why are we trying to save all the wetlands?)

We add about 3% CO2 Damien. One volcano goes off and adds 100′s of times what we add in one year. Are you going to say that volcanos are not natural, that they upset the ‘balance’ too?

Damien #100: And here all of us Scientists thought that when CO2 absorbs heat, it radiates half of that heat back down toward the earth – warming the surface. Can you tell us what experiments you have performed that show CO2 does not reflect any of the heat it absorbs back toward the earth? I’m sure the Scientific community is curious to know.

I said INDUCED WARMING, the idea that CO2 increase will drive climate warmer. You see, I did NOT refute CO2 as a GHG – I did NOT say that CO2 does not reflect heat! You are simply misrepresenting what I posted and then attacking the words YOU substituted that were NOT what I wrote! It’s lame, everyone here recognizes you doing it and it certainly does nothing to bolster your credibility. (and by the way, DROP THE NAME CALLING – I never called you ‘stupid’)

Here’s a question for you Damien – if 300PPM CO2 reflects 50%(!) heat back to earth as you assert, how much will 600PPM reflect back? 100% ?? Answer please.

There remains ZERO evidence that human CO2 contributes to any measurable amount of global warming. What actually correlates to climate quite well are regular oscillation of ocean currents such as the AMO and PDO. http://icecap.us/images/uploads/AMOPDOTEMPS.jpg

…no correlation to CO2 whatsoever! Once again Damien, I’m NOT saying that CO2 doesn’t contribute to global warming… I AM however inferring that CO2′s contribution is ZILCH! (and you will NOT find any EMPIRICAL evidence contrary to that assertion)

I also heard on the news calls for Obama to reign back his “agenda” because
the economy was not it a good enough state at present…

Richard S Courtney said it best for me.
“In times of plenty people merely grumble.
In times of famine, people revolt.”

Damien wrote,
” How many times do you have to be told, and told and told again that water vapour is not ignored. In fact if it were not for the magnifying effects of water vapour, CO2 doubling would not be a problem at all.

That is exactly the relationship I was referring to Damien,
the assumed but observed to be exactly the opposite in reality relationship that is the basis of the projected (modelled) heating mechanism.
The game is up, the IPCCs junk “science” is sunk.
As will hopefully be the IPCC’s funding be.

CONGRATULATIONS to all here that have helped along the way.
But don’t drop your guard yet..

““Another silly statement. It is explainable by the fact that in a globaly warming climate, oceans take longer to warm before they start out-gassing CO2. Hence, historically, the lag of CO2 rise behind temperature rise. Of course historically CO2 has not driven warming. But that does not mean CO2 can’t be driving now.””

So after a BILLION years of CO2 failing to drive temperature up,it suddenly can in the last 100 years?

ROFLMAO!

By your very admission,you are a proven AGW cultist who will never admit that CO2 does NOT drive temperatures up.After you state that CO2 does NOT drive temperature up in the first 99.9999999999% of earths history.Now the laws of atmosphere physics suddenly change around 1880?,to accommodate your AGW cultist belief that allows you to believe that CO2 has mutated into a rogue super duper molecule.Sopping up every stray IR photon,and redirecting it back towards the planets surface in clear violation of thermodynamics.

Is there any chance you played a lot of pac man computer games when you were a boy?

Water at some temperature X evaporates at the surface and is now water vapor at temperature X. The heat required for the change of state just went into the water and causes zero change in temperature, correct? Now… water vapor is LIGHTER than air, humid air goes UP, correct?

The humid air rises and, even though that humid air cools adiabatically as it goes up, it does NOT give up any heat. That water VAPOR physically carries the heat it collected at the surface all the way up to 10′s of thousands of feet in altitude – WELL ABOVE MOST OF THE CO2 – where it then condenses back into a liquid releasing the heat it collected at the surface way up high above a significant amount of the atmosphere thus radiating much more easily out to space. (Additionally, the warmer air is – the more water vapor it can hold.)

Now consider that the very place where global warming seems to occur the LEAST happens to be the same place where the most convective storm activity is found – in the TROPICS which is also where the bulk of solar heating occurs.

The above is clearly a valid explantion of water as a NEGATIVE FEEDBACK making it a natural thermostat.

Sunsettommy (Thomas pearson):
July 13th, 2009 at 7:56 am
wrote in reference to Damien’s “AGW beliefs”,
Now the laws of atmosphere physics suddenly change around 1880?,
to accommodate your AGW cultist belief that allows you to believe that
CO2 has mutated into a rogue super duper molecule.
End of quote.

But, but the Hockey Stick says “it” happened after 1950. !!!!!

Obviously the huge USA buffalo herds had in all innocence been
warming the world out of the Little Ice Age because of
their methane emissions since the 1880′s…
No doubt some AGW quack (probably from North Wales – remember that “University”
set up with 35 million pounds to study the effects of cow trumps on the global climate..)
will soon produce a study showing how the reduced methane emissions due to us shooting almost all the bison, delayed the CO2 “mutation” untill the 1950s……..
Mann, they can not get their stories straight.
ROFLMAO.

This AGW / “green” debacle or more correctly SCAM,
will be the stuff of comedy for years and years to come.
Scientists (climate especially) will be (rightly) viewed with suspicion
for at least a generation. Not only the AGW proponents,
but also those that said “nothing”. Doing nothing was not an option,
not in a subject so important, so patently and scientifically WRONG.
Politicians, well, this will have a long lasting effect on their percieved
honesty, motives, and respectability for a good deal of time longer.
The relationship between politics and science will be permanently tainted.
In short it will be long remembered that,
“Pay a scientist enough and he (or she) will prove whatever
you want him (or her) to prove.”

Brendan and Damien’s comments, and many of their ilke will be
quoted mercilessly as the ill informed, brain washed,
divorced from reality, politically motivated,
personnal career chasing above all else,
(our hard earned) tax devouring parasites
they truely are.

Apologies to all, I’m trying to post in a more humourous, less passionate,
and subtle manner.
But I do not seem to be able to get the hang of subtle at all well..

Damien:
Every one of your posts remind me of the rooster that is convinced his crowing is the CAUSE of the sun rise.
I think we will name our rooster Algore. It will impress all the chickens.
Try differentiating tween concidence and causation.

Ann:
I find the IPCC change from mandate to whatever they cliam thier goal is to be part of the “PLAY”. I also noticed that they now claim to be a scientific body. It would be nice if the advocates were removed and also the public relations people. That would also raquire the politicians and economists to be removed as they are not scientists. Anyone with a better gues than 56 remaining “Scientists”? Now if the so called scientist that do not follow scientific principals were removed then would we arrive at a negative number?
Guys : You left me speechless as you took up all the fun replies to the promoters of AGW!

Mike – “outright daft” is the only term I think is fitting for ocean acidification because IF, (using THEIR logic here…), IF CO2 makes the planet warmer then that includes the ocean with is 1000 times the thermal mass of the atmosphere. It is scientific FACT that warmer water can hold LESS CO2, (and less CO2 means LESS life which explains why the warmest areas of ocean are the dead-est. In fact, the rise of CO2 that was happening was primarily the ocean giving up CO2 as well as increased biomass respiration on land.

You are misunderstanding. The Oceans Co2 levels are not in equilibrium with the atmosphere, and are still absorbing CO2. Ocean Co2 levels and hence Ocean acidity are both increasing posing a threat to ocean life.

Here’s a question for you Damien – if 300PPM CO2 reflects 50%(!) heat back to earth as you assert, how much will 600PPM reflect back? 100% ?? Answer please.

The 50% refers to the odds of a IR photon being reflected up or down when it hits a CO2 molecule. Further, a IR photon reflected up can hit another CO2 molecule and again have a 50% chance of being reflected up or down. Increasing the number of CO2 molecules increases the probability of backscattering any inividual IR photon, lengthening the process of diffusion of IR out of the atmosphere.

Oh and btw, reaching a saturation point is nearly impossible. Even Venus hasn’t reached the saturation point, since there isn’t any saturation point.

If we were nearing a saturation point, the following graph would plateau, instead of increase. Please see:

Mike M – That water VAPOR physically carries the heat it collected at the surface all the way up to 10’s of thousands of feet in altitude – WELL ABOVE MOST OF THE CO2 – where it then condenses back into a liquid releasing the heat it collected at the surface way up high above a significant amount of the atmosphere thus radiating much more easily out to space.

Interesting. So in your confused little universe, heating the planet, does not heat the planet, it instead cools the planet.
That’s why global mean temperatues are up .75`C over the last 100 years.

Ohhhhhh Mikey Mikey Mikey, that is the kind of thinking you get when you spend too much time with your head over a bucket of roofing tar.

Interesting. So in your confused little universe, heating the planet, does not heat the planet, it instead cools the planet.

Well… That ought to to prove for most everyone on this board that you do not even understand the concept of “negative feedback” because it most certainly does NOT imply whatsoever your capricious notion that ‘heating causes cooling’.

Negative feedback is the terminology of a CONTROL SYSTEM constraint that applies BOTH ways in regard to the magnitude of a given ‘output’ condition in response to a given input condition compared to some fixed reference point. To keep it simple for you, negative feedback implies stability and positive feedback implies instability.

Al Gore has routinely issued warnings about ‘tipping points’ and wild positive feedback senarios that cause temperatures to run away once they and CO2 levels reach some magical amount. The trouble is Damien that there is ZERO evidence that that has ever happened back when earth was FAR warmer and had FAR more CO2 in its atmosphere. In fact, the geologic record of earth’s temperature suggests that some sort of impressive negative feedback is at work http://www.scotese.com/images/globaltemp.jpg whereby temperature seems to reach a some sort of ~limit~ around ~24C. Just look at the Cambrian period when CO2 was at least 3000 PPM and maybe 2 or more times that amount. According to Gore, the earth should have turned into a cinder right then and there but temperature was no different then than when CO2 was under 1000PPM at the end of the Cretaceous. The CO2=temperature Al-Gore-ithm FAILS miserably looking back at the planet’s geologic record. Gore’s response? The ‘debate is over’ so don’t look!

I used the analogy of a thermostat for the purpose of illustration. Perhaps I didn’t explain that far enough for your understanding – when things get warmer, water vapor, (per that one aspect of its behavior described in my prior post.. NOT overall), tends to reduce the warming by increasing the release of heat back out to space. This would be like an air conditioning thermostat but assume the air conditioner is not big enough to stop the warming and instead can only slow it down.

The question Damien is only how MUCH water vapor can do that, not whether or not it does. You seem to be saying that water vapor does NOT help remove heat from earth’s surface by physically transporting the heat higher in to atmosphere?. If that so then either give a scientific explanation why what I posted is not true or admit that you are just a troll.

Damien McCormick (Daemon):
July 14th, 2009 at 9:41 am
wrote,
” I mean, really, how stupid exactly do you think climatologists are? ”
End of quote.

In a “know your enemy” sort of way, they are not stupid by any yardstick.
That said, “intelligence” does not equate to correct.
AGW preaching climatologists are, at absolute best, blinkered.
They are also patently ill informed if they think the “science is settled”.
Science particularly the youngest of sciences, climatology,
is most definately not “settled”.
Weather “forecasts” still do not go with any reliability, beyond 3 days,
usually far, far shorter..
The oceans cover 71% of the earth’s surface, and are on average 2 and half kilometres deep, yet PDOs where not discovered untill the late 1990s………
What hope is there for modelled climate “projections”. None.
Note the post 2000 global temperature stasis / decline,
NOT ONE PROJECTION PORJECTED THAT.
The above means they are poor scientists, at best, because they routinely ignore / dismiss empiracal observation. A good scientist would of admitted many years ago, and it is still as true today, we are no where near understanding anything like enough of the various natural complex systems (and if we have any discerable effect on them), that combine together to make what we call global climate.
Regardless of how good these “climatologists” are at argueing / debateing a null point
(ie the UNPROVEN HYPOTHESIS [hunch / assumption] that AGW is).
Or rather, flogging a dead horse.

However I do believe there are many (most) “AGW climatologists” that are highly motivated, but by personnal ego, greed, political ambitions, political beliefs, and of course “saving humanity from itself” whilst getting rich and famous doing so,
not by the basic and good science virtues of empiracal observation and the truth.
Science is a word derived from the latin word for truth….

These are not “scientists” that are good “climatologists” they are the “climatologists” we have had foisted upon us at present by the political funding that climate science has attracted so much of in the last few decades.
“What the politician finds useful” is the name of the game, finding “it” ensures the funding continues and frequently increases.
The actual science quality / value / reliability / truthfulness DOES NOT MATTER.
Hence the state of so called “climate science”.

When scientists like Dr Ferenc M Miskolczi are allowed to come to the fore,
ie,http://hpsregi.elte.hu/zagoni/NEW/New_developments.htm
then we will have the beginnings of a good basis to build our understanding of climate and the physics involved on. Or at least move forward to a better (partial) understanding.

Untill then we are stuck with the present crop of
very intelligent, highly respected AGW climatologists”,
snake oil salesmen in normal parlance.

Damien McCormick (Daemon):
“Your point was addressed, you simply ignored the answer, or are a bit numb upstairs to comprehend it.
So here it is again.
The climate system has many inputs, some major and some minor. Push on the system with a non-CO2 input and the climate system’s orbit changes and CO2 and the other feedbacks follow. Push on the climate system with CO2, and it must necessarily lead, the orbit changes and the other feedbacks follow. ”

This is circular logic Damien laced with obfuscation. You can’t use the theory itself to prove the theory you are trying to prove. The Global Warming asserts that higher CO2 concentrations drive higher temperatures. The ice core data shows just the opposite. Of course this is due CO2 out gassing by the oceans with the 600 year lag. If you had actually looked, I stated as much in my original post. But unfortunately for you the point remains. Why were the temperatures LEADING and the CO2 concentrations FOLLOWING? Regardless of CO2 coming from the oceans its still CO2 why didn’t temperature just run away at that point?

Your explanation is that there were non-CO2 inputs. What prey tell are these non-CO2 inputs you refer to and why were they significant then but not significant now?

In any case I guess at the very lest you agree that Al Gores little graph proves nothing except that dissolved gasses come out of solution at higher temps, bravo!

“The cause is sustained human emission of CO2 at a rate much higher than the biosphere’s ability to re-sequester it.
Hence CO2 level’s continue to rise, and therefore global mean temperatures continue to rise.”

Human emissions might be the cause of higher concentrations but transforming CO2 into the major driver of climate does not follow from that. I realize it does in your theory, but again you have to prove the theory with observable data not more theory. Your theory rest on higher CO2 concentrations causing higher temps. We have seen historically where this is not the case. Your explanation is that something else was in the “driver seat”. What that was only you know I guess. We are asked to believe that just because humans started to contribute to the CO2 concentrations this mysterious other “driver” of climate gave the wheel over to CO2, you offer no data or explanation as to why this should be so.
Damien, just saying something doesn’t make it so.

You have no empirical data showing that CO2 has ever been in the “driver’s seat” as you like to say. Just saying that it changed due to the industrial revolution simply proves nothing.

Global warming can be caused by a number of factors. Global mean temperatures have increased about 0.75`C over the last hundred years with the bulk of the warming in the last 50 years. Is it explained primarily by natural variation or human GHG emissions? Climatologists believe the main culprit is Anthropogenic CO2 emissions.

How do they know this? It’s rather trivial to understand.

When you add water to a sink, you get more water in the sink. When the water level rises you can blame a portion of that rise on the human influence of adding water to the sink. This is true irrespective of how rapidly the water in the sink naturally rises or falls.

The question then becomes what fraction of the observed warming is a result of the influence of man. This is a more complex question that scientists have roughly quantified over the last two decades. The answer is MOST of the observed warming.

How do they know it’s most?

They have estimated the magnitude of all possible sources of warming and that expected by the addition of CO2 by man, and the bulk of the observed warming turns out to be attributable to the actions of man.

Ray – The ice core data shows just the opposite.

Yep, it does, and this is where the confusion starts. Normally (or historically) CO2 has acted as a positive feedback response amplifying some other driver of warming. But, a GHG is capable of both acting as a “feedback” or acting as a “driver”. It is a driver today because unlike the past, CO2 is being constantly pumped into the atmosphere by man at a rate faster than the biosphere can get rid of it.

Ray – Of course this is due CO2 out gassing by the oceans with the 600 year lag.

Yep, as global temperatures rise, the oceans warm and outgas CO2. But it takes a while for oceans to warm, so in turn, it takes a while for the CO2 to be released. Today, although the oceans are warming, they are still not warm enough to start outgassing, and they are still currently absorbing CO2. But if the warming continues (will probably take a few hundred more years), the oceans will eventually have warmed sufficiently that they will again begin to outgas the CO2 that they are currently absorbing, and this on top of the CO2 that has been pumped into the atmosphere by man.

That is when things begin to get so warm you start to see banana trees growing in the arctic.

The big issue is at that time how warm do the oceans have to get before cold methane stored in the deep sediments of the ocean begin to outgas, since Methane is a significantly stronger greenhouse gas than CO2.

Ray – But unfortunately for you the point remains. Why were the temperatures LEADING and the CO2 concentrations FOLLOWING?

Because temperatures were increasing not as a result of CO2 atmosphere concentration increase, but as a result of other factors, and CO2 thus was in the role of acting as a positive feedback mechanism.

Ray – Regardless of CO2 coming from the oceans its still CO2 why didn’t temperature just run away at that point?

Because the oceans can only outgas so much CO2, so the CO2 levels plateau and by that time, the causative driver has abated. So the oceans slowly cool from their warmest point and begin to absorb CO2 again. But more importantly, the loss of ice and the growth of plants on what was an ice field, causes much of the CO2 to be removed from the air, and converted into biomass.

Ray – your explanation is that there were non-CO2 inputs. What prey tell are these non-CO2 inputs you refer to

Damien – A misunderstanding on your part.
I don’t think so (see I can do this too, it’s so much easier)

Damien – Another misunderstanding.
I don’t think so (and cut and past makes it easier still)

I do have to thank you Damien for your, shall I say, uncharacteristically polite response.
The rest of this is going to be a quit general response.
First I don’t care if 100% of the human population believes the earth is flat, the check is in the mail or that I will respect them in the mourning. If they can’t back it up with data they might as well be howling at the moon. I am perfectly comfortable being completely alone in not holding a belief that everyone else holds if that belief makes no sense to me. I am perfectly comfortable being a minority of one if that’s what I have to do. So I simple don’t care if there is a consensus or not. Last time I was involved in science it wasn’t a democracy it was a search for the correct answer. So I don’t care what climatologists ‘believe’ as much as what they can ‘prove’ with data. It seems they don’t appreciate having to ‘prove’ much.

Damien you seem incapable of realizing that this natural variation number and estimates of ALL possible sources of warming calculated by the global warming crowd all includes this assumption, amongst many others, that CO2 concentration is the cause of warming. So I will quit trying to make you see that at this point.

I find it more than just a little curious as soon as 600 year lag in CO2 concentration was exposed then more doodads get hung off the theory to explain away that inconvenient fact (all puns intended). It certainly was not discussed during Al Gores little dog and pony show. Then it was solely CO2 concentrations that were the cause. I initially became interested in this entire question because of the vitriol that the Global warmers spewed at those that challenged their beliefs. I became interested when I heard emanate scientists complain of intimidation and suppression of their views. I became very interested when I was told “The debate is over”. Damien I worked for 20 years in science and it’s just not done that way. In fact I would venture the debate is hardly ever over.

The above leads me to one unfortunate conclusion. The question is political. I once was accused of being a right wing republican just because I was bringing up issues that conflicted with the accepted Global warming belief. I bring this up only to demonstrate how this question has become more political than scientific.

I remember when the endowment for the arts was under attack for what the public believed was bad art. Things like glass jars full of urine with an upside down crucifix in it or a Madonna painted using elephant dung. I didn’t have a dog in this fight, but now it seems if you want bad art have government buy it, if you want bad science have government fund it.

The truth of the matter will come out Damien. If the people are subjected to draconian regulation and control for naught their ridicule will be withering and seem like forever, and rightfully so.

Ray says – I find it more than just a little curious as soon as 600 year lag in CO2 concentration was exposed then more doodads get hung off the theory to explain away that inconvenient fact (all puns intended).

As soon as? No, that is just when you became aware of it. It was always known that CO2 hasn’t driven past climate change, and it has been known for a couple of decades that Anthropogenic CO2 emission has driven recent warming. You will not find any papers in the peer reviewed scientific press claiming CO2 acted as the main driver of major climate change in the past. None! As Brother Brian would say, Zip. Zero. ZILCH. You have not been mislead.

Ray – It certainly was not discussed during Al Gores little dog and pony show. Then it was solely CO2 concentrations that were the cause.

The cause of the current warming trend.

Gore did not imply that all past climate change has been driven by CO2. If he did, I would join you in calling him a technically iliterate fool.

He explicitly stated that there was a correlation and he is absoltuely correct on that issue.

The earth’s climate has many potential drivers. Everyone knows this. The IPCC knows this. Gore knows this. Scientists knows this, and you and I know this. The great glacial cycles are known to be driven by variations in the earth’s orbital characteristics and axis of rotation (precession). In the past these slowly changing parameters have driven the entry into and the exit from the major glacial periods.

The surface climate is driven into a colder regime, the oceans stay warm, and as they cool, over several hundred years, they remove more and more CO2 from the atmosphere, this has a feedback effect that cools the atmosphere further.

The surface climate is driven into a warmer regime, the oceans stay cold, and as they warm, over several hundred years, they outgas more and more CO2 into the atmosphere, this has a feedback effect that warms the atmosphere further.

Very simple.

There have been no significant changes in the earth’s insolation due to orbital variance over the last 100 years. CO2 is being pumped into the atmosphere directly by man, with the same effects as it has during the ice ages. Warming the surface of the earth.

Yep, it does, and this is where the confusion starts. Normally (or historically) CO2 has acted as a positive feedback response amplifying some other driver of warming. But, a GHG is capable of both acting as a “feedback” or acting as a “driver”. It is a driver today because unlike the past, CO2 is being constantly pumped into the atmosphere by man at a rate faster than the biosphere can get rid of it.

So SHOW us just ONE piece of empirical EVIDENCE you have to PROVE that your “some other driver”, the one that began the warming trend, magically stopped for some reason and CO2 took over? The fly in your ointment is that you have no actual PROOF of how much CO2 acts as a ‘positive feedback’ – you have only your precious climate models that have already FAILED to predict the climate response to CO2 over the last 10 years.

And, your notion, that the rate that humans add CO2 is somehow FAR greater than what the biosphere can deal with, is just another aspect of the same FAILED theory. That notion is patently FALSE because the ocean is capable of out-gassing CO2, and has out-gased CO2 in the past, at rates that are higher than human activity by orders of magnitude. The biosphere is OBVIOUSLY capable of responding to a sudden high rate of CO2 addition because we have the geologic evidence that it has already done it before.

Did you know that commericial greenhouse businesses routinely pump CO2 up to 1000ppm or higher to grow their crops faster and bigger? THAT is the level of CO2 that almost all plants actually want because they THRIVE so much better at those CO2 levels. Just by that little piece of simple knowledge one can conclude that a HIGHER CO2 content would be greatly beneficial to life on this planet.

The real fact about CO2 is that socialists want to use it to shackle capitalism and keep themselves in POWER. It really all boils down to elite socialists grabbing political POWER over us and, beyond the innocent and sensible theories that questioned the concept ~25 years ago, now has nothing to do with science at all.

Mike M – So SHOW us just ONE piece of empirical EVIDENCE you have to PROVE that your “some other driver”, the one that began the warming trend magically stopped for some reason and CO2 took over?

What do you mean “some other driver” that began the warming trend? Known “eccentricity” in the earths orbit have roughly a 100,000 year period. We are near the middle of the current interglacial. The interglacial warming period has ended.

Now tell us Mikey, what changes have occurred in the earth’s orbit over the last 50 years that have caused the global surface temperature to spike so rapidly and exactly mimmic the effects predicted by the release of CO2 by man?

If not “eccentricity”, how about Earths “obliquity” (axis tilt with plane of orbit) having something to do with it? Nope, that’s a 40,000 year cycle.

How about “precession” (axis point drift)? Nope, that’s a 20,000 year cycle.

How about just direct solar heat output cycles? Nope. Solar output is constantly monitored, both at the ground level and by satellite. The observed warming is far far too large to be caused by an increase in energy output from the Sun.

How about a supposed recovery from your precious little ice age that was neither an ice age nor global? Nope. The observed temperature rise since that period has already been three times that decline, which appears mostly to be regional.

So what’s going on then Mikey? If CO2 is not responsible for the current warming, then what is?

Mike M – you have only your precious climate models that have already FAILED to predict the climate response to CO2 over the last 10 years.

Yet the running average global temperature remains remarkably consistant for every day of the year, showing a gradual rise in global average temperatures, now above .5′C with an accelerating rate of increase.

Mike M – And, your notion, that the rate that humans add CO2 is somehow FAR greater than what the biosphere can deal with, is just another aspect of the same FAILED theory. The biosphere is OBVIOUSLY capable of responding to a sudden high rate of CO2 addition because we have the geologic evidence that it has already done it before.

Consider that the plants and animals that exist today have largely evolved to be optimal for the associated global climate.

Globaly …
There have been no 10′C temperature changes over the last 10,000 years
There have been no 5′C temperature changes over the last 10,000 years
There have been no 3′C temperature changes over the last 10,000 years
There have been no rapid 2′C temperature changes over the last 10,000 years

Over the last 100 odd years global mean temperature has risen .75′C and the rate of change is accelerating.

More stress in the form of Climate Change = Greater rates of extinction.

But the biosphere has evolved to be optimal for the current temperature regime. Higher temperatures mean a greater rate of extinction and a biosphere that is less resiliant to human induced damage other than CO2.

Mike M – The real fact about CO2 is that socialists want to use it to shackle capitalism and keep themselves in POWER. It really all boils down to elite socialists grabbing political POWER over us and, beyond the innocent and sensible theories that questioned the concept ~25 years ago, now has nothing to do with science at all.

Why stop there. How about a conspiracy by the worlds Governments to establish a One World Socialist Regime under the control of lucifer.

You can take a swat at us, but you couldn’t make yourself look any worse at this point even if you wanted to. The SADDEST part of the whole thing is that you appear to be completely unaware of what you are doing!

[snip repetition... to paraphrase, I guess Brian is admiring Ray Hibbard and Mikes responses and agreeing with their point of view.]

Mike M. @ 161: without him [Damien], our comments would mostly be “preaching to the choir”

You are suggesting that Damien is a value for this blog. I differ with you. The destruction of value is not a value. That is all Damien represents – the evasion and misrepresentation of the truth. With truth being among the highest of values, any distraction from achieving it is an anti-value. The time and effort spent attempting to address anything Damien has to say is time and effort lost in seeking one’s values.

Now if it were remotely possible that polite rational discussion of the issues could help Damien discover the truth, then a modicum of value could be obtained. After the first round of response, it was clear that there is not that remote possibility. He has truly been entangled in his own web of deception and evasion. We have no obligation to untangle him and we couldn’t even if we wanted to. That is something he must do for himself.

Our efforts are best place to working with the honestly confused and ignorant. Those willfully confused and ignorant, as is Damien, must be left to twist in their own webs in the winds of their own making.

Damien’s “value” here if any, is for the casual reader of the posts and replies to be able to see the answers to his repetition of the normal “consensus” position / arguements / “facts”.

Polar bears are becoming extinct. Yeah right, that’s why in the early 1960s there were about 5,000 polar bears globally and after hunting restrictions were imposed (in the early 70s if I remember correctly) there are nearer 21,000 to 25,000 polar bears now…
BTW – Al Gore had to pay $60,000 to the student who photographed the polar bears whose picture he used completely out of context. They were not “stranded” they often swim vast distances, it’s what they do, they are the top Arctic predator for a damned good reason…AND polar bears have been around through several far warmer interglacials.

We all need to know how to expose these “people”, and deal with obfusication.

Brother Brian – Step 1 of discussing AGW, if you’re a believer, is to understand, at minimum, what the IPCC has to say about it. If you just open up your mouth and start spouting off your own ideas, and are clueless as to what IPCC concluded, you have no business commenting on what Joanne has posted. You have no business oommenting at all, for that matter.

Fair enough Roofer boy. Now please quote from the IPCC reports where CO2 is claimed to be the “driver” of historic major climate change.

You can’t, can you, ahahahahaha ….. (moderator: surely I am allowed one giggle?)

The value offered is not from Damien. His method and goal is the destruction of value – in particular the value of truth.

The actual value produced here is from the valiant attempt to sustain the value of truth. If an innocent bystander observes the conflict, he can easily assume that there is merit to both sides of the argument where, in fact, the merit is all one sided.

Damien uses the Kolker Reset method and “wins” by our continuing to take his bait. We are distracted from our more vital pursuit: the search for truth and the defense of individual rights.

The better way is to address his onslaught until you discover he is using the Kolker Reset then simply arrange things so he must live by his words all by himself.

He has tickets for a ride on the hand basket to hell. He is trying to get us to ride along with him and to pay for the trip. We should allow him to go to hell alone and pay for it himself.

Its bait if we bite. His feeling of intent about what he is doing is irrelevant in the matter. Evasion, distortion, and misrepresentation is his method. He uses the Kolker Reset. It is time to pull the plug.

“Approximately 55 Ma, an abrupt warming (in this case of the
order of 1 to 10 kyr) by several degrees celsius is indicated by
changes in 18O isotope and Mg/Ca records (Kennett and Stott,
1991; Zachos et al., 2003; Tripati and Elderfi eld, 2004). The
warming and associated environmental impact was felt at all
latitudes, and in both the surface and deep ocean. The warmth
lasted approximately 100 kyr. Evidence for shifts in global
precipitation patterns is present in a variety of fossil records
including vegetation (Wing et al., 2005). The climate anomaly,
along with an accompanying carbon isotope excursion, occurred
at the boundary between the Palaeocene and Eocene epochs, and
is therefore often referred to as the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal
Maximum (PETM). The thermal maximum clearly stands out
in high-resolution records of that time (Figure 6.2). At the same
time, 13C isotopes in marine and continental records show that
a large mass of carbon with low 13C concentration must have
been released into the atmosphere and ocean. The mass of
carbon was sufficiently large to lower the pH of the ocean and
drive widespread dissolution of seafloor carbonates (Zachos
et al., 2005). Possible sources for this carbon could have been
methane (CH4) from decomposition of clathrates on the sea floor,
CO2 from volcanic activity, or oxidation of sediments rich in
organic matter (Dickens et al., 1997; Kurtz et al., 2003; Svensen
et al., 2004). The PETM, which altered ecosystems worldwide
(Koch et al., 1992; Bowen et al., 2002; Bralower, 2002; Crouch
et al., 2003; Thomas, 2003; Bowen et al., 2004; Harrington et
al., 2004), is being intensively studied as it has some similarity
with the ongoing rapid release of carbon into the atmosphere by
humans. The estimated magnitude of carbon release for this time
period is of the order of 1 to 2 × 1018 g of carbon (Dickens et al.,
1997), a similar magnitude to that associated with greenhouse
gas releases during the coming century. Moreover, the period of
recovery through natural carbon sequestration processes, about
100 kyr, is similar to that forecast for the future. As in the case
of the Pliocene, the high-latitude warming during this event was
substantial (~20°C; Moran et al., 2006) and considerably higher
than produced by GCM simulations for the event (Sluijs et al.,
2006) or in general for increased greenhouse gas experiments
(Chapter 10). Although there is still too much uncertainty in the
data to derive a quantitative estimate of climate sensitivity from
the PETM, the event is a striking example of massive carbon
release and related extreme climatic warming.”

Approximately 55 Ma, an abrupt warming (in this case of the
order of 1 to 10 kyr) by several degrees celsius is indicated by
changes in 18O isotope and Mg/Ca records (Kennett and Stott,
1991; Zachos et al., 2003; Tripati and Elderfi eld, 2004). The
warming and associated environmental impact was felt at all
latitudes, and in both the surface and deep ocean. The warmth
lasted approximately 100 kyr. Evidence for shifts in global
precipitation patterns is present in a variety of fossil records
including vegetation (Wing et al., 2005). The climate anomaly,
along with an accompanying carbon isotope excursion, occurred
at the boundary between the Palaeocene and Eocene epochs, and
is therefore often referred to as the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal
Maximum (PETM). The thermal maximum clearly stands out
in high-resolution records of that time (Figure 6.2). At the same
time, 13C isotopes in marine and continental records show that
a large mass of carbon with low 13C concentration must have
been released into the atmosphere and ocean. The mass of
carbon was sufficiently large to lower the pH of the ocean and
drive widespread dissolution of seafloor carbonates (Zachos
et al., 2005). Possible sources for this carbon could have been
methane (CH4) from decomposition of clathrates on the sea fl oor,
CO2 from volcanic activity, or oxidation of sediments rich in
organic matter (Dickens et al., 1997; Kurtz et al., 2003; Svensen
et al., 2004). The PETM, which altered ecosystems worldwide
(Koch et al., 1992; Bowen et al., 2002; Bralower, 2002; Crouch
et al., 2003; Thomas, 2003; Bowen et al., 2004; Harrington et
al., 2004), is being intensively studied as it has some similarity
with the ongoing rapid release of carbon into the atmosphere by
humans. The estimated magnitude of carbon release for this time
period is of the order of 1 to 2 × 1018 g of carbon (Dickens et al.,
1997), a similar magnitude to that associated with greenhouse
gas releases during the coming century. Moreover, the period of
recovery through natural carbon sequestration processes, about
100 kyr, is similar to that forecast for the future. As in the case
of the Pliocene, the high-latitude warming during this event was
substantial (~20°C; Moran et al., 2006) and considerably higher
than produced by GCM simulations for the event (Sluijs et al.,
2006) or in general for increased greenhouse gas experiments
(Chapter 10). Although there is still too much uncertainty in the
data to derive a quantitative estimate of climate sensitivity from
the PETM, the event is a striking example of massive carbon
release and related extreme climatic warming.

I do agree the cost to the truth of Damien’s “handcart to hell we pay for” approach has been so far too costly to real climate science, the truth, our understanding, and (AGW supported) politics.
However it is being repeated in many, many places, and as Brian suggests it needs kicking in the pants, swiftly and conclusively.
The public need arming against such false doctrine.

Damien thinks the Kolker reset method works, casual readers here will realise it does not.
That is worthwhile in my opinion and deperately needed.
People with less time / interest also need the ammo, to fight this doctrine, religion, call it what you will, in an understandable manner.
I think we all here are trying our best to do just this.

Can anyone employ the Kolker reset method to the polar bears are becoming extinct scare for example ?

This thread and the part 2 are about explaining the latest trumped up scare that does not exist – ocean acidification. I would suggest the Part 2 thread is doing an admirable job in putting such alarmism to bed, before it can be used to do even more harm to us all.

OK, OK, I meant oceanic temperatures or heat content, but oceanic acidification “fears” are as equally trumped up by the misuse of irrelvant and dodgy assumptions and “statistics”, so the point is still valid.

For anyone wondering why oceanic acidification “fears” can be so easily dismissed, please look up when most coral reefs were formed and the atmospheric CO2 content.
Hint – atmospheric CO2 levels were a lot higher than now…

The oceans have been alkaline since they were oceans (= habitats for life).

Quiz: What was the prevalent form of carbon before it became the fossil (as hydrocarbon) of prolific life on Earth?

Daemon, I apologise for hurling insults at you.

Many people, it seems, have been swayed by other voices about AGW – being presented some hearsay “evidence” of AGW, and their beliefs are turned.

I am not sure where you live, but can you point to some evidence that would suggest AGW is real, within the realm of your experience?

I cannot. My wife, a gardener of more than 50 years, cannot. (Yes, its possible my wife is older than I am.)

Can you share your observations with us, Daemon? The reason I ask is, “Global Warming” means just that, and if it is something that happens “everywhere else but where I live,” than I am not sure “global” should be a good term for it.

We hypothesize that the established pre-1998 trend is the true forced warming signal, and that the climate system effectively overshot this signal in response to the 1997/98 El Nino. This overshoot is in the process of radiatively dissipating, and the climate will return to its earlier defined, greenhouse gas-forced warming signal. If this hypothesis is correct, the era of consistent record-breaking global mean temperatures will not resume until roughly 2020.

Kyle, no matter how you cut the cake – there is only so much cake to be cut. Go ahead and theorize away at whatever excuse you wish to employ to explain ~why~ the nature refused to obey your incomplete modeling but, regardless of any ~reason~ that you can come up with, regardless of what you predict will happen, time itself will ultimately force you to accept the past.

So while you you might be right or you might be wrong, someone else could have predicted future warming based upon the flip of a coin — and they would have been no ‘more’ wrong than you were! (The coin took a ‘bad bounce’, etc.)

On top of that, we were told by the AGW crowd that there is such an incredible amount of “positive feedback” in our climate that an increase of warming would lead to an even greater amount, a catastrophic amount, of warming. However, you now seem to be saying that the cause of such warming is somehow a factor when it was not a factor before. You do not really explain the significance of WHY it matters that the warming was El Nino versus AGW? You seem to be suggestting that IF the El Nino had not occurred that the temperature would have eventually steadily increased to the same level as that at a later date but then would not have come back down because this ‘mystery’ cooling mechanism would not be there anymore or would be incapable of re-radiating the amount of heat at that later date simply because it was … at a later date. Sorry, your theory sounds like one for the “X-Files” and the “Y-Files and the “Z-Files” and other such variables to describe these yet-to-be-discovered climate mechanisms that are painfully absent from your climate models.

It fact it does not matter exactly what they are at all. You have opened the flood gates upon yourself because IF such an ‘overshoot’ caused by an El Nino can be radiated back out – how in the world are you in a position to say that whatever mechanism allowed for that excess radiative disipation to occur, ones that you readily admit that you do not really understand, are not STILL THERE ‘laying in wait’ to cool the planet and embarrass you all over again?

Regardless, it’s important to note that we are not talking about global cooling, just a pause in warming.

The only sensible rebuttal I can think of is to declare that all global warming events are not global warming at all but merely pauses in global cooling!

The Catlin Research Team, brave as they were in the Arctic, must have returned from their journey with a different understanding altogether about the state of the Arctic than the impression they had before they embarked.

I think many people, if they correlated “global warming” with their personal experiences, would have a different understanding of it, than basing their impressions upon what they hear from outside sources.

AGW simply CANNOT be something that happens to “other people and other places unseen.”

“I FOUND IT! THE PERFECT CLIMATE MODEL! An animation that illustrates how earth actually processes heat!”

I used to work at that place Mike. Don’t much appreciate you bring those painful memories back to the surface. It was career hell. Pick up blue ball in my cube, turn left, turn left, turn right, deposit blue ball, return to cube, repeat.

“We will invent anything, to cover our behinds, under any circumstances, no matter how absurd.

“We hypothesize, that there are enough gullible people out there who swallow it no matter what, because we have allowed AGW enough time, and have hyped it enough, for it to continue unabated in people’s imaginations no matter what we say.”

Damian 159 “The fact that CO2 laged historically is quite simple to understand. Colder oceans absorb more CO2, and warmer oceans outgas CO2.
The surface climate is driven into a colder regime, the oceans stay warm, and as they cool, over several hundred years, they remove more and more CO2 from the atmosphere, this has a feedback effect that cools the atmosphere further.
The surface climate is driven into a warmer regime, the oceans stay cold, and as they warm, over several hundred years, they outgas more and more CO2 into the atmosphere, this has a feedback effect that warms the atmosphere further. “

Damian it’s really not required that each and every time we discuss CO2 concentrations for you to explain again and again how dissolved CO2 in the oceans reacts to increased temperature. I had that in my very first post (65). Reproduced below for you:
Ray Hibbard 65 “The fact that the ice cores say just the opposite of what the theory states namely that higher concentrations drive the increase in temperature when in fact it is the other way around. This is easily explainable to anyone that understands how dissolved gases react to a higher temperature.”

Damian 159 “As soon as? No, that is just when you became aware of it. It was always known that CO2 hasn’t driven past climate change, and it has been known for a couple of decades that Anthropogenic CO2 emission has driven recent warming. You will not find any papers in the peer reviewed scientific press claiming CO2 acted as the main driver of major climate change in the past. None! As Brother Brian would say, Zip. Zero. ZILCH. You have not been mislead.”

Al Gore certainly did imply the CO2 concentrations would, will and did cause temperature increases. There was no mention of the 600 to 800 year lag. The scale he used and the data he used did not have enough resolution to reveal that. The data as far as I know was available to reveal that but he chose not to use it. There was no discussion of ocean out gassing to explain the higher concentrations. In both of these instances data was withheld from the audience for the purpose of highlighting the causal relationship between CO2 and global warming. He removed or ignored anything that might possible make even a lay person sit up and say “hey wait a minute!”

That’s the whole reason the medieval warming period had to be removed. That would have been difficult to explain.

As far as you assertion that the global warming crowd doesn’t believe this causal relationship existed in the past see my post 178.

Now let me give you a little theory of my own.
One day a few million years ago after most of the fossil fuels where trapped under the earths surface, Nature, let us call her Cindy that was my first true love she broke my heart but we are still friends, anyway Cindy looked around and saw all this energy trapped beneath the ground and hating the waste of energy went about devising a plan to return all that energy to the system. She sat and she sat, thought and thought, she even had little coffee clutches on the subject with all her other nature girlfriend personas. She finally knew what she needed, she needed a monkey. Not just any monkey mind you but a really smart monkey. So she set about evolving her smart monkey and lo and behold she created man. Took quit a while before he finally got around to doing what he had been created for, you know how men are ya gotta nag and nag to get them to take out the garbage. But eventually he gets around to it because he has to. He has to because he like everything else that lives he has one thing on his mind. I won’t go into detail because this is a family web site. In any case he does fulfill his purpose and begins digging coal and sucking oil out of the ground and burning these energy deposits in order to get more of the thing that he thinks about every 8 seconds or so. He burns all that fossil fuel and returns the CO2 from whence it came, the atmosphere. Nature, I mean Cindy is really pleased she gets back all that trapped carbon and as a side benefit one of the monkeys she created was me and she gets to break my heart in high school .

Al Gore certainly did imply the CO2 concentrations would, will and did cause temperature increases. There was no mention of the 600 to 800 year lag. The scale he used and the data he used did not have enough resolution to reveal that.

In order for the film to be shown, the Government must first amend their Guidance Notes to Teachers to make clear that 1.) The Film is a political work and promotes only one side of the argument. 2.) If teachers present the Film without making this plain they may be in breach of section 406 of the Education Act 1996 and guilty of political indoctrination. 3.) Eleven inaccuracies have to be specifically drawn to the attention of school children.

(My first kiss was a Cindy too.. really! Was yours living in Western Pennsylvania back in 1967?)

Hah. This would therefore read, “cannot be used to predict climate” because “climate” is ONLY defined in decadal (at the very minimum) spans, obviously.

Hansen and Gore’s monthly or annual or monthly indigestion about temperatures make me laugh.

(Gore doesn’t know any better, but Hansen really ought to. By the way aren’t Hansen’s parents Swedish? I think they are. So send him copies of the Sceptics Handbook in Norwegian to send to his relatives back in Scandinavia.)

Last week, a UK High Court judge rejected a call to restrict the showing of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth (AIT) in British schools. The judge, Justice Burton found that “Al Gore’s presentation of the causes and likely effects of climate change in the film was broadly accurate”

Ray Hibbard – Damian it’s really not required that each and every time we discuss CO2 concentrations for you to explain again and again how dissolved CO2 in the oceans reacts to increased temperature. I had that in my very first post

Why can you not accept that that either a natural event that spikes CO2 concentration (such as the event 55 million years ago in the IPCC study you referenced) or an Anthropgenic spike of CO2 concentration today can’t also drive temperature?

You seem to be under the false impression that if CO2 is driving warming now. It must necessarily have driven warming in the past, and if not then it cannot be driving now. But that is just plain silliness. In a system where t = f(a,b,c,d,e,f….) and a=f(b,c,d,e,f…) and b=f(a,c,d,e,f…) etc. there is nothing preventing c from lagging when other factors (changes in the earth insolation for example) are driving change.

While cause and effect have a set order (outside of the microscopic quantum world), CO2 effects can still be delayed and still alter current temperatures. Higher ocean temperatures today mean more CO2 out gassing tomorrow and higher temperatures tomorrow.

Now the rates of change may be different between the rate of heating and the rate of CO2 production, and that is what produces the delay. But the CO2 that is currently outgassing will immediately change the temperature.

As we’ve been over countless times. The delay tells you that the CO2 wasn’t in the drivers seat at that time – it was acting as an amplifier with a phase delay due to ocean heating.

Now if this was a periodic oscillation then CO2 could be in the drivers seat and still be delayed – just look how damped driven harmonic oscillators work. In such systems you can even have the driver pushing the system in one direction and the system seeming to respond in the opposite direction – due to the cumulative stresses induced on the system earlier.

Ray Hibbard – Al Gore certainly did imply the CO2 concentrations would, will and did cause temperature increases. There was no mention of the 600 to 800 year lag.

Al Gore claims that there is a relationship between temperature and CO2, and he is right. Sometimes temperature increases CO2 levels (with a lag) and sometimes CO2 increases temperature (without a lag). It’s not a particularly complicated relationship and Gore’s graph clearly illustrates the co-dependence and unquestionable correlation.

My concern is that the users of the Kolker Reset are so far outside of the use of reason that even if you get your concession, there will be still one more Kolker Reset and it will be as if it never happened. I have found the pattern to be horrifyingly common, persistent beyond belief, and impervious to reason, reality, and logic. I suggest it is a failure goal if the goal is to change that kind of “mind”. Yes, there is value to be gained from the struggle to be increasingly clear, exact, and inclusive of the necessary context. With the Kolker Reset types, I find rapidly diminishing returns beyond the first few cycles. However, that is my experience. Others may have to experience the effect of diminishing returns as directly as I have.

In my experience, the best way to handle the Kolker Reset patterned person is to allow him to follow his own path with his own resources. He will meet reality eventually. When he does, he will learn its nature and adapt or go extinct. The point is that we don’t have to make the trip with him. We have our own paths to follow and our own challenges to overcome.

I will admit that I have lost the ‘fun’ of it a long time ago.

Having experienced the original Kolker and at least five of his fellow travelers (ca 1995 to 2002), I am likely to be very sensitive to the pattern. I have had very mixed success in getting the reset types to admit an inconsistency in logic. I concluded it was not logic that they were using. Words had strange and shifting meanings all typically without objective referent. For example, “context” seemed not to be the relevant known factors, it seemed to be the totality of all possible facts, known, unknown, past, present, and future. They would presume they had a position of an absolute deity and could “know” the unknown without having to acquire the knowledge with process and effort. When pressed on that point, they would claim absolute knowledge was impossible and that it was all ‘hypothetical’ possibilities anyway. They would then push the reset button. It was like grabbing for a bucket of fog.

I simply reduced the time it took me to identify such individuals and terminated the conversation with something like: “it is clear you are unwilling to learn from the discussion and there is nothing new that I can learn from it. End of discussion.” If questioned further, I would say: “I am not being paid to be your intellectual or psychological therapist. Either give me the evidence that you at least understand my position (agreement is not required) or I have no reason to continue. You have refused the values I offer and give none in return. I don’t work for free. ”

Joanne’s approach may have a low yield but it cannot be said to be heavy handed. It has a chance of bringing out the best of the few who are not totally over the edge. It is like panning for gold. You don’t find it if you don’t do the work. Most likely the gold is not there or you will miss the little that is there but if you find it, its real and can be worth the effort.

[Sorry Lionell, I edited here. When I said, 'post this on That blog thread', I was referring to the blog post I have not yet written but plan too. Below is off-thread but people are interested so I will leave it and move it later when I write that post, hopefully soon. - JN]

Joanne said recently: “I’m convinced some people just have a faulty brain. I can’t see why evolution would have ensured we all would understand Aristotle. ”

Understanding Aristotle is an interesting issue. Is it a matter of hardware or software – nature or nurture? My working hypothesis is that both are involved. The brain is very plastic and changes structure with use and experience. Apprehending reality and what it takes to do it is a matter of choice: to focus or not, to think or not, to be aware or evade…. Depending upon the pattern of choice the brain modifies itself to facilitate one side of the choice. If this is true, then the choices we make when we are young set our brains to our future. Some choose to be focused, to think, and to be aware. Others do not. Still others are in the muddled middle – most perhaps. So in a sense it is a faulty brain at work but its mostly a self chosen fault. I write about an aspect of this in: http://arationalhuman.blogspot.com/2008/11/source.html

I do know this, using reason must be a deep commitment. It takes a consistent high level of intellectual honesty and effort. With time, it does appear to get easier if only due to the habit of making the choice to use reason as much as possible. My evidence is that at my age of 72, I am able to solve far more complex problems more easily than before. So much so, that I am amazed at what I accomplish some times and how little it took to do it.

Damien McCormick (Daemon):
July 17th, 2009 at 10:42 pm
Wrote,
” While cause and effect have a set order (outside of the microscopic quantum world), CO2 effects can still be delayed and still alter current temperatures. Higher ocean temperatures today mean more CO2 out gassing tomorrow and higher temperatures tomorrow.
……
But the CO2 that is currently outgassing will immediately change the temperature. ”
End of quotes.

Constantly rises CO2 levels over the MLO (from the late 1960s) record, yet
a ten year global temperature stasis (to date) since the turn of the 21st century. ?
AND, over the same period, increasing human CO2 emissions…
Where is the IMMEDIATE relationship between changing global CO2 levels and global temperature you suggest. ?
What is over riding the so called “dominant” effect of human emitted CO2 at the present time. ?
What that is not “dominant” according to you is being dominant at the present time. ?

Given the ARGOS buoys data, ocean temperatures seem to be cooling, yet you imply they are “warmer today”. Why, this is misleading.
If ocean temperatures were warmer (today) then more CO2 would be outgassed by them, this is simple, undisputed physics, but the oceans are not warmer they are cooler (than the last few years).
The rate of CO2 atmospheric concentration rise is decreasing (see MLO) but overall the CO2 concentration is still rising (unlike global temperature), the oceans are not as cool as they were relatively a few centuries ago.
You appear to be mixing time scales regarding when the oceans were warmer or cooler to mislead.

Cooler oceans less outgassing, warmer oceans more outgassing, it really is not that difficult to understand.
Trying to understand your suggestion that today warmer oceans (over the last few years) mean more outgassing of CO2 leads to a higher atmospheric CO2 level, is not possible to understand when oceans are cooling (over the last few years). AND the rate of increase of atmospheric CO2 is reducing.
However relatively speaking the oceans are warmer than what they were in the recent past several centuries, hence the probable reason global CO2 levels are rising overall.
Inconveniently oceanic temperature changes over time suggest strongly that nature is the dominant effect in global CO2 atmospheric concentration levels, NOT human emissions.
Any “sum” of global CO2 levels MUST include the effects of changes to oceanic phases / currents and temperature changes, over centuries, not just the last few (supposedly) convenient years.

YES! Yes, there is indeed a correlation between CO2 and temperature! I’m so happy that you admit that it exists … AND THAT YOU ALSO ADMIT THERE IS A QUESTION OF WHICH IS DRIVING WHICH.

Ain’t that the whole ball of wax there Daimee? Which is the driver? How do you ~know~ when CO2 is driving temperature or when temperature is driving CO2? As far as I have heard the only place you can cite CO2 driving temperature is in a computer model whereas I can cite the inverse evidenced from hard empirical ice core sample data.

Saying “The computer told me so!” would be as comical as Flip Wilson’s Geraldine saying “The devil made me do it!”…if not for all the political claptrap and assured economic devastation attached to that notion. This argument keeps coming back to the fact that you both fail to provide empirical evidence to convince anyone that CO2 is a major climate driver and also keep attempting to mislead people with the idea that ‘correlation proves causation’.

It really is a false controversy.

Or at least that’s what alarmists desperately hope that everyone will think…

Nope. Using a statisticaly insignificant number of data points is what is misleading.
Your local junior college probably has a course in statistics. There, you could learn about variance and statistical significance. Given the variances in temperature data sets, claiming a climate trend with only 5 or 6 years of data will earn you a big fat F in your statistics assignment.

MikeM – How do you ~know~ when CO2 is driving temperature or when temperature is driving CO2?

It seems to me that the 8-9 gigatonnes of Carbon that man is pumping into the atmosphere is manipulating the CO2 concentration of the atmosphere.

MikeM – As far as I have heard the only place you can cite CO2 driving temperature is in a computer model whereas I can cite the inverse evidenced from hard empirical ice core sample data.

One of your mates posted an IPCC reference to a study of a naturally occuring CO2 spike 55 million years ago that drove climate. Got some Ice core data covering that period?

As for the models, they are run, inputing CO2 levels as a dynamic variable. Temperature change is computed from the laws of basic radiative physics. The Equations are all available to you on line. As is the complete source code for many of the models used.

MikeM – and also keep attempting to mislead people with the idea that ‘correlation proves causation’.

Mislead? I have not said ‘correlation proves causation’ I have said ‘correlation implies causation’ which it certainly does. Every time I apply a voltage across a wire, a current flows and a magnetic field appears. Hence science concludes that the act of applying a voltage, correlated with the current flow, correlated with the magnetic field implies that moving currents cause magnetic fields.

Correlation implies causation. In fact it is that inference that is behind all experimental science, and hence all natural science.

Damien McCormick (Daemon): “Why can you not accept that that either a natural event that spikes CO2 concentration (such as the event 55 million years ago in the IPCC study you referenced) or an Anthropgenic spike of CO2 concentration today can’t also drive temperature?”
This reference was given to rebut your claim: Damien McCormick (Daemon):
“Fair enough Roofer boy. Now please quote from the IPCC reports where CO2 is claimed to be the “driver” of historic major climate change.”
Are you now ready to concede that the IPCC does believe that CO2 is a driver of historic major climate change or are we just going on to something else as you are apt to do?
I made no statements of acceptance or rejection of the IPCC study. I am not about to start ‘accepting’ theories as fact absent some hard data to establish their validity. Computer models do not constitute hard data.

Damien McCormick (Daemon)199: “You seem to be under the false impression that if CO2 is driving warming now. It must necessarily have driven warming in the past, and if not then it cannot be driving now. But that is just plain silliness. In a system where t = f(a,b,c,d,e,f….) and a=f(b,c,d,e,f…) and b=f(a,c,d,e,f…) etc. there is nothing preventing c from lagging when other factors (changes in the earth insolation for example) are driving change.”

Sorry Damian I am laboring under no ‘impressions’ it is your position that this chaotic system can be modeled using gross assumptions in order to make the calculations possible in this lifetime. It is you that claim that through the wonders of computer models and programs they can somehow tease all the letters of the alphabet you refer to apart and predict global Armageddon due to a minor atmospheric constituent. I’ve got 20 years as a computer consultant and the first commandment “Garbage in garbage out” is still alive and well. That garbage can exist in the code as well as the data.

CAUTION long convoluted exchange dead ahead.
Damian post 159:
“Ray – It certainly was not discussed during Al Gores little dog and pony show. Then it was solely CO2 concentrations that were the cause.
Gore did not imply that all past climate change has been driven by CO2. If he did, I would join you in calling him a technically iliterate fool.”

Ray Hibbard post 193: “Al Gore certainly did imply the CO2 concentrations would, will and did cause temperature increases. There was no mention of the 600 to 800 year lag. The scale he used and the data he used did not have enough resolution to reveal that. The data as far as I know was available to reveal that but he chose not to use it. There was no discussion of ocean out gassing to explain the higher concentrations. In both of these instances data was withheld from the audience for the purpose of highlighting the causal relationship between CO2 and global warming.”

Damien McCormick (Daemon)200:
“Ray Hibbard – Al Gore certainly did imply the CO2 concentrations would, will and did cause temperature increases. There was no mention of the 600 to 800 year lag.
Al Gore claims that there is a relationship between temperature and CO2, and he is right. Sometimes temperature increases CO2 levels (with a lag) and sometimes CO2 increases temperature (without a lag). It’s not a particularly complicated relationship and Gore’s graph clearly illustrates the co-dependence and unquestionable correlation.”

Damian why don’t you try arguing to the point instead of repeating your self. The point of my post 193 was to point out that Al’s little show and tell was to convince the man in the street that CO2 concentrations where correlated past, present and future to temprature. To prove this I cited the absence of any mention of the 600 to 800 year lag or Ocean out gassing. If he was aware of this data he would be at worst a liar or at best a carnival barker. My bet is on the latter. If he was not aware of this he would be in your words (post 159) an ‘illiterate fool’.

Regarding your statement “Sometimes temperature increases CO2 levels (with a lag) and sometimes CO2 increases temperature (without a lag)”. I think that’s the first time I have ever heard correlation defined in such a way. Parameter x can be going up or down while parameter y is going up or down, sometimes in unison sometimes not but our computer models say they are correlated so they are correlated. And by the way the debate is over.

I’m the mate that posted the IPCC reference MikeM. I posted it to rebut Damien’s oft-repeated claim that CO2 was not the driver in prehistory (which now I guess He now disavows) and that the IPCC never claimed it was. Damien’s bait post 173 is reproduced here.

“Fair enough Roofer boy. Now please quote from the IPCC reports where CO2 is claimed to be the “driver” of historic major climate change.”

I will repeat my last unanswered question to you Damien, are you now ready to concede that the IPCC does believe that CO2 is a driver of historic major climate change or are we just going on to something else as you are apt to do? I have to note that although even the IPCC is not rash enough to leap to the conclusion that CO2 was the climate driver, it’s is still under study that’s all, Damien implies he is more than ready to do so.

So Damien I guess we now know what your definition of correlation is. No matter what time period we are talking about if the CO2 appears to be correlated its driving the climate, if for some reason it appears not to correlate then some other force is in play, some kind of green light game teenagers play with their cars when they first get their drivers licenses. You get to have it both ways don’t you Damien? Bull Bunnies Damien, it is far more likely that the only correlation is that of Ocean out gassing/gas uptake period end of story. It is becoming more apparent with each passing day that this is most likely the case. At least this theory is independent of the time of day, the millennia, or failed presidential candidates.

Your argument is beginning to boil down to some pretty thin ice Damien. Your idea of correlation is pretty untenable for anyone that has spent more than a week in any kind of scientific pursuit. For you cause and effect are interchangeable and parameters can correlate sometimes but not at others times depending on the dictates of your ‘theory’, and you don’t see this as dogma, interesting.

Daemon – “Now please quote from the IPCC reports where CO2 is claimed to be the “driver” of historic major climate change.”

Ray – I will repeat my last unanswered question to you Damien, are you now ready to concede that the IPCC does believe that CO2 is a driver of historic major climate change or are we just going on to something else as you are apt to do?

Childish. One event 55 millions years ago is meaningless. I meant in general terms. An unusual CO2 spike event releasing CO2 above what is normally outgassed is of course going to dominate. That is part of my argument, bird brain. You need to demonstrate that the IPCC deny there is an historic lag.

Ray – So Damien I guess we now know what your definition of correlation is. No matter what time period we are talking about if the CO2 appears to be correlated its driving the climate, if for some reason it appears not to correlate then some other force is in play

Nope, it will always correlate. The only difference is that if CO2 is driving, there is no lag. So Ray, why is there no lag between temperature rise today and the observed anthropogenic CO2 excursion when there was a near constant lag in the past, and what has changed recently to negate the delay?

Nothing except absorb IR from below and reradiating it in all directions – including down. Hence there is greater IR below than there is above. Hence it is warmer below.

Very simple, very correct logic, that only the terminally stupid can not follow.

Your excuse?

Brian – The CO2 might indeed absorb some IR.

Might? What kind of nonsense statement is that. You can verify the fact that CO2 absorbs Infared Radiation with a box of baking soda, vinegar, a cardboard box, some celophane and a candle.

Brian – At the microscopic concentration it is present in the air, and as it ever was, that absorption is responsible for nothing. Not compared with everything else.

What else. Be specfic. Water Vapour? Water Vapour is in dynamic equilibrium with the atmosphere at it’s current temperature. Water content is dependent upon temperature. You can’t increase the water content of the atmosphere without causing rain to fall out of the atmosphere somewhere else. Water vapour can therefore only amplify (or limit) an increase in temperature. What is increasing the temperature? The increase in CO2 mostly.

Nope, it will always correlate. The only difference is that if CO2 is driving, there is no lag. So Ray, why is there no lag between temperature rise today and the observed anthropogenic CO2 excursion when there was a near constant lag in the past, and what has changed recently to negate the delay? Ray – For you cause and effect are interchangeable Correlation supports the following two hypotheses equally.

So now you reverse yourself and and say that science does not support #1? You’ve already mentioned the science of temperature causing CO2 to rise and fall in your prior posts such as this one :

Damien July 10th, 2009 at 12:53 pm #90: Another silly statement. It is explainable by the fact that in a globaly warming climate, oceans take longer to warm before they start out-gassing CO2. Hence, historically, the lag of CO2 rise behind temperature rise. Of course historically CO2 has not driven warming. But that does not mean CO2 can’t be driving now.

And this one:

Damien July 15th, 2009 at 3:01 pm #154: Yep, as global temperatures rise, the oceans warm and outgas CO2. But it takes a while for oceans to warm, so in turn, it takes a while for the CO2 to be released.

Above are two times you acknowlege that oceans out-gas CO2 but now say science doesn’t support it? So NO Damien.. science supports BOTH OF THEM!

And ocean out-gassing it NOT the only science either; animal bio-mass respiration also follows temperature and on a much faster turn-around. Animal life, the microbial variety in particular which is easily majority by weight on the planet, explodes with temperature, such as in soil and wetlands accelerating the release of significant amounts of methane and CO2.

So now that I’ve confirmed that your assertion, “there is no scientific support of temperature driving CO2″, is FALSE, let me also point out the actual science of your #2 is ONLY contained in radiative physics itself. The AMOUNT of impact that the CO2 radiative physics actually has on our climate has NEVER been determined with respect to the water vapor cycle, (which the IPCC wholly admits is poorly understood), or ocean cycles, or solar variation, etc. A few dry radiative physics equations do NOT encompass the complexity of our climate system by any stretch of the imagination!

So you can go on and on and on about your CO2 radiative physics equations but you fail miserably to demonstrate with EMPIRICAL data that their overall impact on our climate is anything beyond TRIVIAL, (I. E – large enough to be measured).

If they were non-trivial – we would have seen them kicking in by now in the current temperature record and in the holy grail predictions made by alarmists that the radiative physics of CO2 would most certainly produce a hot spot 10km above the tropics which never happened at all: “The greenhouse signature is missing.”

Dr David Evans, consultant to the Australian Greenhouse Office from 1999 to 2005: If there is no hot spot then an increased greenhouse effect is not the cause of global warming. So we know for sure that carbon emissions are not a significant cause of the global warming. If we had found the greenhouse signature then I would be an alarmist again.

Let’s hear you correct Dr. Evans Damien – tell a climate MODELER that his revelation of his model being wrong – was wrong… and why we should believe YOU and not him?

Damien post 217 “Childish. One event 55 millions years ago is meaningless. I meant in general terms. An unusual CO2 spike event releasing CO2 above what is normally outgassed is of course going to dominate. That is part of my argument, bird brain. You need to demonstrate that the IPCC deny there is an historic lag.”

There’s the Damien we’ve all come to know and love. If you meant “in general terms” you should have stated that. We can’t be held accountable for your inability to express yourself precisely. To the best of my knowledge I have only asserted that Al Gore was at worst dishonest and at best ill informed in his little presentation by omitting these facts. Therefore I won’t be chasing your goal posts by demonstrating that IPCC denies/accepts there is a historical lag.

Damien post 217 “Nope, it will always correlate. The only difference is that if CO2 is driving, there is no lag. So Ray, why is there no lag between temperature rise today and the observed anthropogenic CO2 excursion when there was a near constant lag in the past, and what has changed recently to negate the delay?”

First, “Nope, it will always correlate.”, but in your world they can have a negative correlation and then at another time have a positive correlation because of this “driver seat” concept you have. When I came to this site I thought that there was some causative effect of CO2 but I believed it to be small and mans contribution smaller still. After dealing with your rants over the past few weeks and a bit of digging I have come to the point where I am convinced that the CO2 concentration is just an artifact of rising/falling temperature.

Second, “The only difference is that if CO2 is driving, there is no lag. So Ray, why is there no lag between temperature rise today and the observed anthropogenic CO2 excursion when there was a near constant lag in the past, and what has changed recently to negate the delay?” , it is you that asserts that this presence/absence of the lag is important in some way.
It is completely unimportant to me except to highlight further the independent nature of CO2 vs. temperature (Ocean out gassing/uptake excluded).

Damien post 217 “Ray – For you cause and effect are interchangeable
Nope. Correlation supports the following two hypotheses equally.
1. That temperature rise/fall causes atmospheric CO2 levels to rise/fall.
2. That CO2 concentration rise/fall causes temperature to rise/fall.
Scince only supports the second one, just as science only supports the assertion that Kennedy’s head didn’t cause a bullet to enter a rifle loaded in a school book repository in Texas.
You do know the difference between cause and effect don’t you Ray?”
I don’t think you mean to say that “1. That temperature rise/fall causes atmospheric CO2 levels to rise/fall.” Is false do you? I can find dozens of places where you accept the fact that oceans outgas and take up CO2, just one way temperature can increase CO2. I’ll just be charitable and chalk that up to typing faster than you where thinking.

With regards to “Scince only supports the second one, just as science only supports the assertion that Kennedy’s head didn’t cause a bullet to enter a rifle loaded in a school book repository in Texas.” I did not know that science had a position on bullets, rifles, and presidential heads, thank you for informing me. However you are confusing theory with a fact.

“You do know the difference between cause and effect don’t you Ray?” My grasp of the concept of cause and effect is excellent thank you so much for asking. I have happened upon another cause and effect during these past few weeks of correspondence with you.
CAUSE: Wrangle with Damien for weeks about his now it correlates now it doesn’t who’s in the driver seat, and who’s on first, theory of global warming.
EFFECT: Convince myself beyond any reasonable shadow of a doubt that this entire AGW theory is nothing more than a huge steaming pile of horse squeeze.
I want to thank you for that Damien.

What this all boils down too is that you have bought into a theory that is attempting to prove an independent variable is somehow correlated. That is why the theory has to constantly evolve in order to explain why the theory comes up short when its predictions don’t materialize; the missing hot spot is a good example. I have seen this happen in the lab it’s an easy pitfall to fall for, hell I’ve done it. But at some point you have to discipline yourself and fess up, admit you are wrong and start over to find what you missed or misinterpreted. I know all of the above is lost on you Damien because you are a ‘believer’ and your faith is unshakable. It’s mostly meant for other casual readers.

MikeM, thanks for the link very helpful. You might want to give it an objective read too Damien.

Damien McCormick (Daemon):
July 19th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
Wrote,
Water Vapour? Water Vapour is in dynamic equilibrium with the atmosphere at it’s current temperature. Water content is dependent upon temperature.”

So in the Upper tropopause the water content has been decreasing, whilst temperatures increase………

You quaintly continue,
” You can’t increase the water content of the atmosphere without causing rain to fall out of the atmosphere somewhere else. ”

Does that make sense. ?

You then follow with,
” Water vapour can therefore only amplify (or limit) an increase in temperature. ”

You appear to be trying to suggest water vapour can only be a positive feedback,
without taking latent heat, and convection movements (up and down) into account, this is plainly a very blinkered and unrealistic view.
Water vapour can have a strong positive and negative feedback effect, the workings of which, and net “sign” of is very poorly understood at present, AT ANY ALTITUDE IN THE ATMOSPHERE, or how it varies over time and with weather conditions.

Daemon you end with these false statements of your percieved version of “climate facts” that is opposite to the actual, observed, and empiracal truth,
“What is increasing the temperature? The increase in CO2 mostly.”

Would you (Daemon) care to justify these plainly WRONG statements, because,
1) Global temperature is not rising, it is in stasis, or decline, since the turn of this century.
2) You assume CO2 is causing the temperature rise that is NOT occuring, so you have shown yourself to be wrong.

THE QUESTION IS why are global temperatures in stasis, or rather decline over the last ten years, yet CO2 levels continue to rise (for whatever reason). ?

How much of a part did CO2 play in 1998, and 1999 global temperatures……..
However large a part you assume for CO2, it was dwarfed by the oceans.

After many baseless irrational claims from someone dominating discussion with at times nonsensical positions you have reached your limit.

We are here for honest conversation using Aristotelian principles of logic. That means we expect people to acknowledge good answers, concede points where they are wrong, and apologize unreservedly for baseless insults.

After several emails behind the scenes I’m posting this on Damien’s behalf. – JoNova

Damien writes:

Hi Jo, I am sorry for calling Mr Evans “dishonest”. I disagree with the premise of a signature but I certainly admit I could have worded it more diplomaticaly! And I’m willing to choose my words more carefully in future if you reconsider blocking my posts.
But also, it is only fair that the others are made to toe the line as well. That would be appreciated.

Photos from US spy satellites declassified by the Obama White House provide the first graphic images of how the polar ice sheets are retreating in the summer. The effects on the world’s weather, environments and wildlife could be devastating

Thank you Damien. Please note (everyone) bullying, and baseless lies are never acceptable. We want honest conversation. If you can’t back up an assertion, don’t post it.

Damien: “I disagree with the premise of a signature… ”

I say: Read the report from the CCSP. The word “fingerprint” (same meaning in this context) is used 50 times in this chapter. It’s in their own words. The fingerprint of greenhouses gases includes warming in the upper trophosphere.

“…the oceans are not continuously warming—a conclusion not consistent with the idea that the oceans may be harboring “warming in the pipeline.” Douglass further notes that the team found no correlation between the shifts and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration.”